Candice Wu 0:00

This episode is about how to have clear energetic boundaries, strengthen boundaries to protect from absorbing others energy or emotions, releasing and sorting other’s energies from yours, and how to feel healthy as an Empath with practices and perspectives from Family Constellations, energy work, Somatic Experiencing, Group Dynamics, and psychology. Following these are three healing experientials that can support grounding and strengthening energetic boundaries and clearing absorbed energy.

Candice Wu 0:32

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 0:45

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 1:07

I am really excited about the Soul Body Women’s Retreat, which is the sponsor of this podcast. Soul Body Women’s Retreat is in October 2018. And this retreat was inspired by the idea of connecting soul to body such you feel completely like yourself embodied and at ease, expressing yourself freely and creatively just the way it is truly you.

Candice Wu 1:32

The beauty of connection of soul and body is that you can develop the awareness to transcend the limitations and the belief sets that you’ve been living from that you can feel even freer and more conscious.

Candice Wu 1:45

This is a small group retreat. So if you feel inspired or aligned with this, feel free to reach out to me and I’d be grateful if you share this with anyone you thought would be interested. For this and future retreats, you can find out more at CandiceWu.com/retreats.

Candice Wu 2:00

Now, let’s jump into the show.

Candice Wu 2:06

As a healing facilitator and intuitive coach, I’m often working very deeply with people’s emotions, sometimes on very deep and traumatic ones, and sometimes very pleasurable ones.

Candice Wu 2:20

People are often asking me, how do I stay clear and grounded in my own energy? How do I not pick up other people’s energy? And how do I know what’s inside of me if I’ve picked something up or not? And how do I strengthen my boundaries so that I don’t absorb others energy? Is this possible?

Candice Wu 2:39

And so today’s episode is all about that. This is something I’ve worked hard at for the last 10 years. I would say about 10 years ago, if I walked into a room, a crowded room, I could feel the emotion like a tidal wave, it would feel like suddenly, I’m feeling differently from when I walked in. And when I left, I would either feel bad, self-conscious, maybe I’d have a headache or a stomach ache, perhaps I would feel a wave of sadness or angry or tense somehow in my body. And I really had no idea where it came from, other than, “Wow, I can’t handle being around people.” Or, “Wow, I have so many triggers that I’m just feeling so much anxiety in me, so much emotion. And here it all is.”

Candice Wu 3:29

So I attributed all of that to my own experience and just me solely. Of course, some of it was mine. Some of it was my personal triggers and the things that I would feel anxious about, but it felt like an extra load by times five. So some of it wasn’t mine. It was almost as if I was like a magnet to other people’s negative emotions.

Candice Wu 3:54

Sometimes that was very cool. Like, I would be very aware of how someone was feeling, especially if cared about them and could really relate to them. And other times, I was just left feeling horrible.

Candice Wu 4:06

It wasn’t until I learned about being an Empath, as well as the concept of Projective Identification and psychology and Family Constellations and Somatic Experiencing work, that I realized that I was picking up other people’s energy. And that while I could cope with that, and find ways to navigate that differently, I could also strengthen my boundaries so that I did not have to take in all that energy.

Candice Wu 4:35

Learning about this truly released me because I found ways to strengthen and fine tune my own energetic system, my own body, and my awareness so that I could have stronger boundaries when I needed them. That I could navigate and release any energy that I did pick up effectively, that it didn’t just carry around forever. And how to use the experiences that left me with something that was mine to learn and grow from, grow stronger in my nervous system.

Candice Wu 5:04

At this point in my life, I feel a lot clearer. I feel more grounded stronger in my boundaries. And I have more of a conscious choice of whether I want to tune into energy around me and emotion around me, as well as I can more effectively navigate what’s mine and what’s not and clear it if I need to, if I have picked something up that I’m not aware of. And I feel less blindsided by energy in general, that just somehow has stayed with me from who knows when in the day.

Candice Wu 5:36

So you might wonder if this topic pertains to at all “Have you ever felt icky or a different emotion after being around someone?” Yes, it could be something you’re triggered by. But it also could be some energy that you picked up or are holding for someone else. Perhaps being around groups, you may feel overwhelmed or almost taken over by a certain emotion. If when you’re around others especially if you are some sort of healing practitioner, therapist, a person that works with others in a health or healing capacity, perhaps you feel fatigued or exhausted, you might begin to feel irritation or edgy or angry.

Candice Wu 6:15

This is the body’s natural instinct to push back or reject, push out whatever it doesn’t really belong in your energy field. Perhaps something’s not digesting well in your body, or you’re feeling disrupted sleep or other physical symptoms, headaches.

Candice Wu 6:31

If you’re someone that doesn’t feel like you have enough alone time and you’re feeling overstimulated by sounds, light, smells, touches, and textures. Or if you’re feeling certain emotions, sensations in your body, thoughts that seem to be extra loaded or intense after being around groups or certain people, that may be a sense in you to look at, are you picking up other people’s emotions?

Candice Wu 6:58

Well, many of those aspects can be your own body’s experience or something that you’re reacting to. It can also be added onto by other people’s energies. And we’ll look at how to sort that out in this episode.

Candice Wu 7:16

So today’s episode is five-fold.

Candice Wu 7:19

First, we’ll look at what may be related to the experience of being unbalanced or loaded with other people’s energy. Here we’ll talk briefly about being highly sensitive and an Empath.

Candice Wu 7:32

Secondly, we’ll talk about understanding how to ground and direct your energy to be in yourself, so that your boundaries are stronger.

Candice Wu 7:39

Third, will explore knowing what’s yours and what’s not in terms of energy, sensation, or dynamics.

Candice Wu 7:47

Fourth, how to strengthen your own boundary and heal up any ruptures to your boundary, whether that’s an energetic or physical rupture, or something that’s even deeper.

Candice Wu 7:56

Which leads us to number five, is looking at the unconscious and conscious beliefs, the past conditioning, and internalized projections that connect with why you even take on other people’s emotions to begin with, if it is out of balance.

Candice Wu 8:14

So let’s begin with the first one what may be related to the experience of taking in other’s emotions, and what is an Empath or highly sensitive person.

Candice Wu 8:23

When you’re picking up on other people’s energies or emotions or thoughts, what they’re experiencing, it’s beyond just having empathy for someone.

Candice Wu 8:33

Dr. Judith Orloff who’s an expert with this, says that having empathy means our heart goes out to another person in joy or pain, but for Empath, it goes much farther. We actually feel other’s emotions, energy, and physical symptoms in our own bodies without the usual defenses that most people have.

Candice Wu 8:52

So whether or not you would consider yourself an Empath, if you are someone that feels very affected by other people’s energy or their moods, or you feel very intuitive and can perceive others very well, then you might be experiencing picking up other people’s energy or absorbing it not only emotions and energies, moods, and body sensations.

Candice Wu 9:15

People who are very empathic can also feel into other’s wishes, their thoughts, impulses, motivations, and desires like other people with empathic abilities.

Candice Wu 9:29

I was told very early and very young that I was too sensitive. And so this is something that I experience most healers who are Empaths or therapists that are very tuned in to have a struggle with because they’ve had to overcome the criticism of their gifts.

Candice Wu 9:49

Being empathic in this way is actually a beautiful gift. What it can also come with, is being very in touch with your inner world and having a complex inner life, feeling in touch with depth and creativity as well as spirituality or something unseen and deeper. Someone who has this ability to tune in and be sensitive can also be aware of the subtleties and nuances of situations and can attune easily to what’s happening.

Candice Wu 10:19

In my most natural state, I’m easeful and balanced. I feel buoyant and grounded at the same time. And I feel that I can turn on and off my ability to tune in. Once in a while, I feel like something’s hit me. And that’s usually when I look inside to see where that receptor is in me, that I can strengthen that aspect of myself so I don’t get blindsided.

Candice Wu 10:45

We all have the ability to pick up on other people’s energies, it just depends how diffuse or open your boundary system is. And if you are someone who has that ability more easily, you might have more of Vata quality. Vata in Ayurveda is one of the Doshas, one of the three main qualities of the whole universe.

Candice Wu 11:09

And Vata is the air and space quality, where it’s movement-oriented, and open versus Pitta, which is fiery, and Kapha, which is Earth and water. We have all three qualities, but somebody who is more open in their energetic system can have more of that Vata quality.

Candice Wu 11:29

So what I found in myself and in others that I’ve worked with around this topic of taking in other’s energy is that when we do that in an unbalanced way, usually underneath that are some beliefs that relate to it, which cause us to take in unconsciously other people’s energies. Sometimes there’s trauma, whether that’s developmental in the person’s lifetime, a soul like a past life, trauma, and also ancestral dynamics.

Candice Wu 11:59

So the dynamics within a family system that go way back. Sometimes it also connects up with Collective Oppression, or other archetypal and energetic dynamics in our whole system, where there’s a Developmental Trauma, sometimes that can relate to not having an emotionally available and good enough parent to be present, to reflect and mirror and be attuned to us as children, which can make it more challenging for a young person to have a core sense of self and to know themselves. To be able to have that reflection by someone we care about gives us a sense of ourselves.

Candice Wu 12:40

And if we don’t have that, then sometimes we don’t have this individuation that separates us from another. Other attachment issues like neglect and abandonment, or disruption at a certain age where maybe another child was born, or some accident or illness happened with the parents or the children, that can also affect how a person develops their sense of self. And it can certainly affect the physical and energetic boundaries of that individual.

Candice Wu 13:11

The difficulty with Developmental Traumas is that sometimes we don’t even know we have them. And we think that our childhood is just great. But also that it is really challenging for the nervous system to develop, if we’ve had disruptions in our childhood, especially ones that were scary, overwhelming or terrifying.

Candice Wu 13:33

Our nervous system as an infant is not built to handle all kinds of emotions, even pleasant ones. And we need the support of a calm, grounded, and attuned adult parent to support us in co-regulating so that our nervous system can develop and strengthen and be able to handle feeling all that.

Candice Wu 13:58

If we don’t have someone that has that ability to regulate themselves, it can feel like we’re also taking on the parents emotions, then we can quickly see how a very early imprint of this dynamic happens, where we’re absorbing other people’s emotions.

Candice Wu 14:17

And in the Family Constellations work, where we look at how the family dynamic is, it connects up with the whole body experience. And a young person who feels like their mother or their father isn’t able to handle their sadness perhaps, or their anxiety will come in and fill in that role. If there’s a sense of a disconnection between the grandparents and parents in our family system, we may take that responsibility upon ourselves to become like a parent to our own parents so we’d become parentified.

Candice Wu 14:53

And in that way, we take on a responsibility that’s far too great for us. We take on being the parent for our parents, which is not our position at all. And it causes us to take in energies and emotions and hold them for others thinking that they can’t handle it.

Candice Wu 15:09

In this way, we act like we are bigger than our parents. We act like we can handle more and that we’re stronger. And then we apply that to the world and begin to absorb other people’s emotions, just like we did to our own parents, if this is the case for your life.

Candice Wu 15:25

In other cases, one may have a parent who is somewhat narcissistic, where they’re acting as if the child is an extension of them, and must act accordingly. It’s quite manipulative in terms of what a parent might almost push their children into feeling. And so those boundaries between child and parent have been blurred, and messy.

Candice Wu 15:54

And all of this connects to the idea of Projective Identification. This is the concept where when one person in relationship with another, projects in emotion that they don’t want to feel, perhaps it’s undesirable or intolerable, or their nervous system is overwhelmed so much that they can’t feel it. So maybe it’s anger. And instead of feeling their own anger, they push it out of their energy system, and hope that the other person begins to feel it so that is taken care of.

Candice Wu 16:30

And the other person says, “Okay, I’ll take that,” unconsciously. Because their system has learned to take that in and they identify with that, so that they almost claim that anger as their own.

Candice Wu 16:44

This happens all the time in our intimate relationships, in our acquaintance relationships, as well as a whole in society, where certain groups of people don’t want to feel something and projected onto others.

Candice Wu 16:57

So if somewhere in your life, you’ve had this conditioning, whether that’s in your childhood, which can be a very intense kind of conditioning, in society, in your culture, or in a past life, then this can be ingrained in you to take on other people’s emotions.

Candice Wu 17:15

I think of it like this, if one person has all these different rocks of different emotions, and they’re able to feel these five rocks and not these five, and they don’t like feeling any of those emotions. So they toss them out and push them down in suppression or repression. Because it may be too intolerable for them to feel, or they just don’t want to feel that way, whatever is undesirable, this is like the shadow, right? We don’t want to feel these things so we push them out. And someone else not only senses that, but takes those rocks in and puts them into their pot of emotions.

Candice Wu 17:58

Now, the key piece is that even if those rocks are pushed out into the open space, the other person doesn’t have to take them in.

Candice Wu 18:08

Why does one take them in and put them in as their own set of rocks? And in my experience, personally and with others, it’s that there’s some sort of ingrained pattern and conditioning that this was about survival at some point to do so or in some way, it was helpful at some time. And now it’s just become a habit. Now, it might even be dysfunctional, and painful.

Candice Wu 18:33

So I find that I’m most balanced when I’m aware of what I’m taking in. In this example, what rocks I’m picking up, so that there’s a purpose to doing that. It might be to support someone else in being able to hold their own rocks, but not to take them in because I think they’re mine, or, to do so on automatic or unconsciously, and to just absorb everything around me.

Candice Wu 18:59

If you’ve had accidents, like car accidents, or falls, natural disasters, or other physical traumas, then the physical body, as well as the energetic boundary of the body, can be broken in certain areas where energies and sensations can just swoop in.

Candice Wu 19:18

Also, another aspect to consider is that your soul history, what your experiences were in your past lives, if you believe in that, or whatever you believe you came in with, is part of your past conditioning. And if it has anything to do with being a shaman, or healer, or witch in a past life, that may also be connected to how it is you take in energy now.

Candice Wu 19:43

And again here, I think that the ideal, the most healthy and balanced places to find a place of choice where you’re able to choose what to take in and what not to, and also to navigate how to deal with it when you have taken something in.

Candice Wu 19:59

So now, I want to shift gears and talk about how to stay grounded and strengthen your energy boundary without doing deeper work but to just look at how you can take different actions.

Candice Wu 20:12

When you’re in a situation where you feel icky, or somewhat uncomfortable, when you’re with somebody, or in a certain situation, try to distance yourself at least by 20 feet, and see if you feel any relief. See if it’s something that you’re triggered by. Or if it’s just as simple as moving away. You can breathe and send your energy downward into your legs and feet, just loosen up the ankles, and press into the bottoms of the feet. And imagine feeling like you are 500 pounds heavy, that you’re just rooted into the ground. And this sending of energy downward and strengthening of the muscles, activating of the muscles, helps the body know its own boundary, physically and energetically.

Candice Wu 20:57

A third thing you can try is to see your energy boundary, imagine what color or thickness or material this sort of energy boundary would be, if you could just make it up. And imagine that sort of force field around you. The interesting thing about some of these practices is that some of them will work for you at different times and some won’t work at all. Because with this exercise of seeing your energy boundary, I tried that very early on and it was like “This, didn’t do anything.”

Candice Wu 21:29

And that’s because I had a lot of developmental, ancestral, and soul trauma that was deeply rooted. And so changing the energy dynamic of all that was necessary before I could even have an energetic boundary around me that was working.

Candice Wu 21:48

So notice for yourself, which ones might work and not. So this third one of seeing your energy boundary, I would recommend practicing this on your own before you’re around people, or in a crowd. I would suggest doing this both physically as well as in your imagination so that it strengthens with your whole body.

Candice Wu 22:08

So as you picture some sort of energetic boundary or bubble that surrounds you, imagine being safe inside of it, and that you could even touch all the parts of your energetic boundary. And notice what color, texture, shapes, or material it would have to be in order to be strong enough for you to feel safe inside.

Candice Wu 22:29

And you can also picture what happens if energy comes at you, or some emotion comes at you and touches the boundary. Does it bounce off? Does it sizzle into flames? And as you feel into the energy boundary, and picture all the way around you like an egg shape up and down, side to side, front to back, use your arms to just check how far out you’d want it to be, or how close, and if there are any ruptures in that.

Candice Wu 22:59

Another thing you can practice is to be like an animal. Porcupines have a really nice boundary of these quills that just can spike up if they’re upset, and they don’t want someone to get near. So that’s something you can picture for yourself. And imagine your own energetic spikes coming up. And that is if you need a boundary that strong, if there’s someone you don’t want to talk to, or don’t want to come near you. Or if you’re feeling like there’s a lot of energy in the room and you don’t want to take it on but even just something into a lion at its rest state, it’s prepared to snarl or show its claws if it needs to. So just having that bit of readiness can support you in feeling a little more grounded in your body and prepared to protect yourself.

Candice Wu 23:49

Something you can always practice is a body scan. It’s just feeling head to toe, all the parts of your body. And as a daily practice, you can even touch your body, head to toe every part of it and just feel into whatever kind of touch feels good and helps you feel the edges of your body.

Candice Wu 24:07

What happens when we have trauma or when we have very loose energy boundaries is that our nervous system almost forgets that it has a physical body, a physical container to support us and to also act as that edge of inside-outside and what we take in and what we don’t. So touching the body from head to toe reminds us of that and gives us a sense of our personal edges.

Candice Wu 24:34

Another thing you can do is to practice setting healthy boundaries and saying no, when you mean no. And no is a complete sentence, there’s no need for an explanation. Sometimes you might need to interrupt someone to take a break. Or if someone asks too much of you, or takes and asserts it, then you can back up and say no, or let them know that this is not comfortable with you.

Candice Wu 25:00

Part of having loose boundaries sometimes goes into giving yourself away to others and letting them do what they want. Or not having a voice in terms of what you prefer. Letting others lead the way or just saying yes to everything that they asked for. And in some cases too, I’ve noticed myself, actually, I had parasites because I was in this place of always saying yes to others, and giving away my energy and letting others come first.

Candice Wu 25:32

At some point, I developed parasites because I had taken a trip to Sri Lanka and probably, you know, ate the food and water and wasn’t really prepared for that. And because my energy system was weakened already by this dynamic of just letting everything vampire off of me, I got sick.

Candice Wu 25:52

So with that, it’s really important to practice listening to yourself and not overriding what you sense, what you need, or what you want. I noticed that I’m most vulnerable in picking up other people’s energy when I don’t want to be in this situation, when my instincts tell me it’s time to go or my social meters out. And if I override that, I pick up a lot more as well as some part of my nervous system gets triggered because I’m not listening.

Candice Wu 26:22

From the Ayurvedic standpoint, I mentioned earlier that there’s a lot of Vata at times when you’re very empathic, or you are picking up other people’s energy. So you can be grounding foods especially if you know you’re going to be on a situation that you’re sensitive too, such as crowds or certain people’s emotions that you magnetized. Give yourself some weight by eating heavier foods that can be meats, if you eat meat or avocado, something that actually feels like it has weight, something sweeter and with more water.

Candice Wu 26:53

This is a lot of information but I want to give you a few more techniques from energy standpoints. At some point, I will transcribe all this and put it on my website so that it’s a little bit easier to follow but I will share just a couple more here.

Candice Wu 27:13

The Zip Up technique from Donna Eden is really nice. It’s like zipping up an energetic coat to protect you from taking on other people’s emotions or energies and it works with the central meridians of the body, the energy pathways that are moving up and down. And the way you do this is you take your hand or two hands at your pubic bone and as you take a deep breath up, slide your hands up the center of your body all the way to your lower lip. And you can do this while touching your physical body or a couple of inches away from it and just repeat this three times.

Candice Wu 27:50

The next one I want to offer you is called “Getting on the Grid”. It’s actually something my friends and I in grad school made up where we noticed this Alex Gray artwork. I will link this in the show notes so you can see it. But it’s this beautiful artwork of a person meditating and you can see each of the Chakras, the energy centers in the body, seven of them in different colors. And this person is sitting on this grid. And its got diagonal lines coming through each side, as well as lines, I think, top and bottom. And for us, it was really helpful to just say to ourselves “Get on the grid.” So, it’s like centering yourselves, containing your energy into your body and then getting on the grid of the universe where your solid and grounded. And I will lead you through that in the meditation that comes connected with this podcast in the next few days.

Candice Wu 28:46

The last thing I want to offer in terms of supporting yourself to be grounded is the approach that you take when you’re around people. Instead of thinking that you were there to help somebody especially if you’re a therapist, healer or wellness practitioner or that somehow you should give advice or be responsible for other people, instead, start to feel people as completely whole and autonomous, full of personal choice and their healing power within, that they have everything that they need inside of them. And sometimes it’s tricky because your mind starts running and thinking, “But they don’t, they need my help.” Even so, if you can release someone to their own inner healing and the universe is healing, you can still support them by showing them tools or guiding them or even sharing your thoughts of them, but to keep that respect, the deep respect and honoring of them as a human being with their own potential.

Candice Wu 29:46

So now we move to the third section of the podcast today. How do you know if you’ve picked up or absorbed other people’s energy? What do you do if you have and how do you cleanse and release?

Candice Wu 29:58

Some of the more general things that I do to cleanse and refresh and reset myself are to shower or bathe, use Epsom salt and baking soda to cleanse and sometimes I like to take a little apple cider vinegar digestively to move anything through.

Candice Wu 30:16

You can also imagine a white or yellow light clearing and cleansing your body like crystal clear light and sunshine, just refreshing all the cells of your body with breath.

Candice Wu 30:28

And the third thing is that I like to cough up energy, might sound funny, but it’s sort of like gagging and coughing and almost throwing up in the air where I feel like there’s stuff releasing out of my body. Maybe it’s my shaman history that I already knew how to do this. But somehow it’s very natural and innate to me. You can do this, it’s simple, it’s a little bit like lion’s breath in Yoga. Lion’s breath is where you take a deep breath in. And when you release your breath, you stick your tongue out as far as you can and you make some noise or a sound. It sounds like this.

Candice Wu 31:13

And you just hold your tongue out as far as you can, with the breath all the way out. You can try it that way just to release anything that doesn’t feel good inside. Or, you can actually try that and begin to cough and gag. It’s not a bad thing or a scary thing. But if you do feel scared, or overwhelmed, take a break or practice with a trained professional.

Candice Wu 31:37

And as you do this, you can also imagine whatever it is, that’s coming out. And when I do it, I just cough and gag. And sometimes I have a couple of tears come out. But almost immediately, I just feel released. Sometimes I’ll feel some sadness with it. Sometimes I’ll feel some other emotion that doesn’t seem like it’s mine. But as I cough, it just comes out. And I imagine what’s coming out if I can sense a color or an emotion and just leave it.

Candice Wu 32:09

Any of the grounding activities that I mentioned before, you can also do when you notice you’ve picked up some energy or when you’re not sure and you’re just checking in. So for example, a body scan or touching your body head to toe, breathing, grounding your feet feeling like they’re 500 pounds, any of those.

Candice Wu 32:28

I find the strongest tool in knowing if I’ve picked up or absorbed other’s energy is checking it in with myself. And the important thing for me is to do that throughout my interactions with others, or whatever interactions I’m having. Sensing into how I’m doing, where I’m at what I’m feeling around me what I’m feeling through me and inside, but also afterward, check in with myself, see how my emotions are, how is my body doing.

Candice Wu 33:01

And if I’m feeling something ungrounded or unbalanced, some other emotion than I was noticing before, something that’s a bit unfamiliar, then I will connect with it. So whatever it is I’m feeling, I will give a little space to myself, and tune in and just breathe into that space if I feel it in my body, in my heart, and I’ll just notice it. Let myself acknowledge what it feels like in my body. And I’ll sense into it.

Candice Wu 33:33

Sometimes this is where I talked to myself and talk to my body and ask “What are you? Whose are you? And sometimes I’ll just have this intuition of ”This doesn’t feel like mine. But what is it?” So I also connect with it and explore.

Candice Wu 33:51

If it is indeed a sense that it’s somebody else’s, the first thing that I do is just try to clear it back and give it back to who it belongs to, or give it up to the universe. I just imagine this energy, whatever color or shape it is, just traveling back to the person it belongs to. And with that person or persons, I just imagine if there’s any energy that’s mine, that I take that back and drop back to myself.

Candice Wu 34:21

This specific practice is another one of the healing experientials that I’ll share with you this week, to guide you through taking back what energy is yours, and releasing any energy that doesn’t belong to you back to where it belongs, so look out for that. If some energy doesn’t want to go or doesn’t want to move, you can stay with it a little bit further, and ask it what it needs to release or to leave, to let go.

Candice Wu 34:47

And whatever it says, without any judgment or filter. Just imagine what it needs and wants. Imagine it happening and see what happens in your body. So, whatever your left with, if you’ve cleared up other people’s energies, or you’ve imagined whatever emotions just going back to who they belong to, if you’ve done some resetting and clearing of your own energy, if you’re left with something still, then that likely means it’s a piece of your own trigger or some aspect of you that is a receptor for that issue, or that emotion or sensation.

Candice Wu 35:27

So what you’re left with, there’s a space in you to receive other people’s emotions in that same way, and it alerts you and lets you know this is where your work is. This is the place that your boundary is ruptured, and that you can transform and heal so you can become stronger if you want to.

Candice Wu 35:50

An example of this is, I was working with a client where immigration was something that had happened in their family history. What seemed to show up was that this family was very excited and hopeful that moving to the United States would be a better life. But it seemed that when they arrived, there was some large grief and disappointment, some pain and survival and struggle, because it wasn’t as they had expected, it wasn’t as accepting to their culture as they hoped it would be.

Candice Wu 36:25

When I was done with this session, I felt that this feeling of grief and disappointment was still sticking with me. I wondered, “Had I picked up my client’s pain, the ancestry’s pain, or was it my own?

Candice Wu 36:42

So I did some of the practices that I had suggested a bit earlier. And what I was left with was still the grief and disappointment. So that point, I knew that it had to do with me.

Candice Wu 36:55

Of course, what I’ve been processing for the last 10 years is the feeling of grief and disappointment of my childhood experience, that there were just things that I really wanted to happen and they didn’t, relationships that I wanted to go a certain way, and they went the entirely other way. So I’ve actually been more recently processing how this experience was to my spirit, that on this grander scale of entering this life with a lot of hope and optimism and excitement for what this life would bring, that early life was disappointing and full of grief and loss, though I wasn’t able to feel those feelings until much later.

Candice Wu 37:38

I’m grateful at this time of my life that I can feel into the gifts of what the trauma and disappointing experiences I had early on, have given me now for my life, but it doesn’t really change the grief and disappointment, those feelings are still there and moving through.

Candice Wu 37:56

So what I was left with after working with this client was my own piece of grief and disappointment. And working with it just reminds your system that this energy is there, and it pulls it up to the surface.

Candice Wu 38:12

So that’s how we know that there’s a piece of us that wants healing, is when something stays with us for longer. Otherwise, for me, at this point in my life, emotions that I’ve perhaps sensed into with others, just roll off my back and move through, or they’re just very easily fluid, and they don’t have something to stick on to, like Velcro.

Candice Wu 38:34

So this brings us to the topic of strengthening your own boundaries and healing up your energetic ruptures.

Candice Wu 38:41

As I mentioned earlier, you can work with your energetic boundary and picture it, use your hands to touch into it and sense where it is. And if you do find ruptures with it, sense what that is, let this attune you to your sense of what might need to be healed so that you can be stronger in yourself, and not let other’s energies come into you.

Candice Wu 39:06

You can work with the experience of energy swooping into your energy field, or, you taking up other people’s energy and absorbing it by imagining it more slowly. Imagine you could see energy coming at you, or that you’re just sucking it up, see how far it goes and where it touches into you, if you could imagine that. Let your body respond back to push it out whether that’s with your imagination of what you would do or literally and physically with your hands. Imagine taking other people’s energy and pushing it back out of your body and your energy field. So that it’s way out and as far out as you need it to be, then keep your hands up as if to say no, this blocks you from taking in more.

Candice Wu 39:55

And that’s something you may need to practice because I’ve noticed that I’m much more of a receiver of negative energies than I am a pushing back kind of person. And it may be something you need to practice to push back.

Candice Wu 40:09

This is a Somatic Experiencing practice. I’m sure it’s in other practices. But if you want to develop that further, you can work with somebody in Somatic Experiencing.

Candice Wu 40:19

I do that work myself and can also give you some recommendations. But if you practice this, you can develop a stronger energetic center and personal boundary so that you’re less likely to take in energies from outside of you.

Candice Wu 40:35

Now the thing you can practice is, putting your hands out and up like face up, as if you’re receiving and just imagine receiving pleasurable experience, joyful experience, and not taking in what others are feeling or negative emotions or any toxicity, but just taking in pleasure. So both the experience of putting a boundary up and saying “No” to what you don’t want to take in and opening the hands to receive what you do want to take in, letting that boundary be permeable to the different types of experience you want to take in and don’t.

Candice Wu 41:16

There are so many practices that you can do to strengthen your boundary. But I’d like to leave you with those today. As well as just a few thoughts about going deeper and excavating the belief sets and past conditioning that are underneath the whole energy dynamic, to begin with.

Candice Wu 41:35

What I found in myself and others that seem to absorb other’s emotions and energies, is a sense of responsibility for others, that they’re responsible for saving them or responsible for making them feel good or pleasing them. Some of the belief sets that I’ve held in aspects of my younger self and my adult self are that it’s my job to absorb all the negativity. It’s my job to absorb anger and loss, because other people couldn’t handle it in my ancestry at that time. It’s my job to fix all the problems. And I essentially exist for other people and for other people to feel good. It’s my responsibility to maintain others well being. It’s my responsibility to save the world.

Candice Wu 42:24

And you can see where all of these might lead my unconscious energy to just absorb everything bad and take it in and to digest it myself a couple of other belief sets that I’ve noticed in myself and others are what we’re feeling worthy of receiving. For example, believing that I’m only worthy of receiving bad or that I’m undeserving of receiving pleasure in goodness and joy.

Candice Wu 42:52

So taking a look at what unconsciously you feel you’re able to receive, that you’re allowed to receive or have, and also looking at what the conditions are of your worth, and being lovable. Specifically, I find that when we’re growing up, we learn different ways that we need to act or be, in order to be lovable or worthy. So did you internalize or come in with a belief that in order to be worthy and lovable, that you need to absorb all the emotions in the room, or that you need to take on more than what’s yours?

Candice Wu 43:32

Some people even resonate with the words in order to be worthy of God. “I need to save the world,” or “In order to be worthy of God,” etc. Whether or not you believe in God, sometimes that seems to hit some level of our being when you just say the words out loud, and going back to the way that we might have been parentified, or in some position in our family ancestry unconsciously, that takes on more than what our share is, that takes on a position that isn’t ours, what we’re actually saying when we do that is “I am bigger, better and smarter than others.”

Candice Wu 44:09

And in fact, if it was a parental vacation, where you felt like you were a parent to your parent, that’s in the position of saying you are much bigger than your parents. And that is untrue, without your superior to your parents. It also suggests that you can handle more than they can, or that they’re fragile and you’re not. But what I find is actually that’s a very deep lack of trust in others, and a dependency that others need to be in a certain place or in a certain way for you to be okay, that’s actually just more of a younger need, a dependency that our parents need to be okay so that we’re okay so it comes instinctually.

Candice Wu 44:53

And yet, as adults, we don’t necessarily need to be that way anymore. We don’t necessarily need to be dependent on that way. Because we have different resources. So what I suggest is to look at all of the underlying beliefs or dynamics of why it is that you absorb other people’s emotions, and let a lot of gentleness and self-forgiveness come in, you can use the words “I forgive myself for judging myself for believing that – whatever that is.”

Candice Wu 45:25

For example, “I forgive myself for judging myself for believing that in order to be worthy, I need to take in all the negative emotions.” And if you practice this, let yourself feel it, emotions have to move for it to shift your whole energy and physical system.

Candice Wu 45:46

Sometimes just shedding light on what the beliefs are underneath are ready, create a shift and allow for change to happen, so that you don’t have to live by that paradigm or dynamic anymore. Having these beliefs doesn’t mean all of you believes it. And certainly, your mind may not believe it at all, your mind may know completely differently. But there is a feeling sense inside that this is true on some level or in some part of you.

Candice Wu 46:14

So be very kind and compassionate with yourself. Because at this time, in our human consciousness, we are living with so many distorted belief sets and limiting beliefs and places of suffering. So be gentle and let these come to the surface with kindness, so that you can find a different way.

Candice Wu 46:38

So that’s all I have for you today. We talked today about having clear energetic boundaries, how to strengthen your boundaries, and protect yourself from absorbing other people’s energies, and how to sort out what’s going on inside of you and practices to feel healthy and balanced.

Candice Wu 46:57

And so in this next week, I will release three different healing practices that can support you in exactly what we talked about. The first one is about clearing energies back to where they belong, becoming whole again, reclaiming your own energy.

Candice Wu 47:11

The second one is about getting on the grid. This is an energetic way to center your energy system and to ground and the third one is a Family Constellations, healing exercise, to release responsibility for what’s not yours, and to receive only the best. This will support you and seeing other’s strength and wholeness through their entire family system, or through their spirits so that you’re not responsible for anyone else’s emotions, even if they don’t want to take responsibility for themselves.

Candice Wu 47:44

I hope you enjoy these and feel free as always, to let me know how they are, give me feedback, ask questions. And if there’s any aspect of what we talked about today, that’s missing, feel free to let me know, I’d be happy to hear from you.

Candice Wu 47:58

Thank you so much for listening today and if you found anything touching, interesting or helpful, I would be so grateful. If you thought about donating on patreon, you can find the information at CandiceWu.com/patreon. And even just $1 a month can support all the backend of this work, this podcast and all the creations that I put out there so that I can continue.

Candice Wu 48:24

I’m so grateful for all the people who have already donated and several of you have chosen to donate at the level where you can receive a personal meditation and I’ve just loved doing those. So you might consider it if you’re interested in a little bit of personal healing and to exchange.

Candice Wu 48:42

Before you go today, I would invite you to listen to more interviews, meditations, and explorations at CandiceWu.com/podcast and you can subscribe to my bi-monthly newsletter, become a member of the Embody Community at CandiceWu.com/embody. We can get lots of free resources on embodiment and healing, meditations and info about some good stuff coming up. On the Embody Community Facebook group, I’ve started to do some more live feeds where I’m sharing some healing tips and ideas that I’m thinking about that you can explore with me and interact with other people in the community. So that’s all for today and see you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Introduction

This is the second healing meditation related to the series around energy boundaries and clearing any absorbed energies from outside of you.

You can find the full series of three meditations plus an introduction around tips and tools, about how to clear your energy to know when you’ve absorbed others’ energy and to use any opportunities of absorbing energy to bring more wisdom and strength.

You can find all that at CandiceWu.com/energy.

This particular meditation is called Getting on the Grid.

This was inspired by many experiences of my friends and me during grad school where we felt that we were ungrounded and had picked up on others’ energies after practicing sessions.

Purpose of Getting on the Grid

When we’re with or working with someone intimately with their inner world or with relationships, emotions, or anything that’s touching in at a deeper level, we may be having an energetic exchange at an unconscious level.

This meditation of getting on the grid is to support you in feeling grounded, centered, complete and whole, so that your energy boundary is strong, and that you can support yourself in being as clear and protected as possible from other outside energies.

This also allows you to come from the space of very deep respect and honoring for another person when you approach them, work with them, or if you’re in their presence.

So if you’re not a practitioner of healing work, or a therapist or a wellness practitioner of any sort, that’s okay, you can use this to feel centered in yourself no matter what kinds of interactions you are having.

The words “getting on the grid” actually came from an Alex Grey painting called, Theologue.

This painting is linked in the show notes at CandiceWu.com/energy.

And I highly recommend taking a look at it because it can help you have a visual for getting on the grid.

It’s a painting of a human in a lotus position with the legs folded.

In this person, the energy centers: the chakras, are all lined up the spine, and they’re lined up with a grid of the entire, what feels to me like the entire universe and surrounding this is this entire grid that maps out onto fire, mountains, earth, air, and space.

There’s an energy bubble around this person that feels like a strong energetic boundary and an aura of radiance.

The description under the painting is pretty complex, but it also gives a feel for this painting.

It says the union of human and divine consciousness, weaving the fabric of space and time in which the self and its surroundings are embedded.

And that’s exactly what getting on the grid feels like to me.

It’s aligning yourself to the grid of the universe, the grid of consciousness that you’re rooted and anchored in who you are, and nothing more.

So let’s jump into the meditation.

Take a moment to find a comfortable seated position where you feel supported and at ease.

So if that means placing a pillow or a block, like a Yoga block underneath you, a blanket rolled up. Support your body in feeling grounded and centered.

Now place your palms face down on your knees and touch your pointer fingers to your thumbs. This closes your energetic centers to yourself.

Just using this mudra, this hand position can also help you in grounding and closing off your energy boundaries so that you’re not giving away or receiving as much.

Now feel into your body exactly the way it is.

Sense your breath moving in and out of your nose or your mouth without changing it at all.

Notice any holding in your body, any tension or resistance to gravity and feel however it is to be in your body at this moment.

Awareness of the Energy Centers

Bring your awareness to your belly button.

We will first take a moment to sense into each of the energy centers, the chakras, and to circulate your awareness to the central channel of the body.

Sensing the belly button, take your awareness down to the pubic bone and now notice the perineum, the very base of the pelvis.

Now shift your awareness to your tailbone, and now the spine behind the belly button, and the spine behind the heart, the spine behind the base of the neck, or C7 vertebra.

Now notice the back of the head behind the third eye, the space between the eyebrows, and now the very crown of the head.

Sense the third eye, the space right in between the eyebrows, and now the base of the neck.

Feel into the center of the chest and now come all the way back to the belly button. Now continue to the pubic bone and now the perineum.

As you land on the perineum, draw an imaginary line from there up to the center of your diaphragm.

And now from this point, draw another line up from there through the chest up to the soft palate at the back of the roof of the mouth and imagine another dot there.

And from here, draw a line up to the very crown of the head, placing a fourth point there.

From the perineum at the base of the pelvis, the center of the diaphragm, the soft palate, and the crown of the head, imagine this central channel of the body called, Sushumna, all aligned vertically.

Notice your whole physiology as these four points in line. Imagine the rest of your body just falling away and with every breath out, just letting that exhalation grow longer, smoother, and deeper.

With this central channel of the body, imagine it syncing up with a universal grid. A grid of diagonal lines, vertical lines, and horizontal lines all to keep you rooted and anchored in time and space.

Alignment — Getting on the Grid

Feel yourself completely aligned with yourself, aligned with the universe and flowing, where you can release any holding or resistance and let your natural state be in sync with all.

Where you can see yourself completely connected to source to all things in complete harmony and as you feel yourself connected into this grid, sense your energy radiating and glowing out from the core of your being, that your energy boundary around you is strong, centered, and whole.

Feel free to visualize Alex Grey’s painting if that supports you in feeling grounded and centered.

As you sense into the four points of your body, from the perineum all the way up to the crown of your head, aligned with the gridding of the universe.

Let yourself be aware of any place in the body or in your senses that you’re aware of feeling centered, grounded, whole or calm.

Let those parts of you deepen and expand as you sense into them, staying with them for even longer.

Closing

Take as long as you’d like here and deepen into this feeling of getting on the grid.

And as you complete your meditation at your own pace, feel free to give a little movement to your body and slowly open the eyes.

This is a specific healing experiential or meditation that can support you if you feel that you've absorbed energy from someone or somewhere else or that you feel a little bit ungrounded, uncentered or icky after being in connection with someone else or a group of people, then you can practice this experiential to help clear your energy to also ground yourself and pull back all the energy that is yours that's out there.

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.

To start with, you might not believe in energy working in this way that you could send back energy to where it belongs or you could drop back in whatever is yours. I didn't for a long time, but as I kept practicing it and stumbled upon these practices that were overlapping in many different healing disciplines and spiritual disciplines, I found that I was able to access something that gave me a sense of how energy was working with me and how it's working through me. So, feel free to try this out for yourself and practice it over time, if it resonates with you, and if it doesn't, you can still practice it or you can scrap it, see what works for you.

This is the first healing experiential out of three that is in connection with the podcast introduction around energetic boundaries and having clear energetic boundaries. You can find the full series of this podcast including the discussion about clearing energetic boundaries, and how and what to do if you've absorbed energy from around you or from other people. That episode includes tips about cleansing and clearing your energy or just simple ways to feel in control and navigate energy as well as grounding yourself and healing any ruptures that are causing your energy boundary to be weaker or have a hole in it. You can find the full podcast at CandiceWu.com/energy. And now, let's jump into this meditation.

You can use this healing experiential and meditation when you feel that you have possibly absorbed some energy from outside of you, whether that's from a person, a group or a question. You can use it to check in on whether you've absorbed anything from outside of you or if you feel that your energy has been lost in some way, that you've given something that's yours, and you'd like to reclaim it.

If you're a therapist or energy worker, a healer in some way or you work with people in a deep and intimate way, this might be something you practice after your sessions with your clients or at the end of the day, this can help cleanse you so that you feel like yourself again, whole and grounded. If you're not a wellness practitioner, and you are a sensitive person or an empath or you just feel like you'd like to see if this is something that affects you of energy from outside affects you, you can practice this as well. Also, if you feel that you're having a particularly challenging situation with a person, a place or situation, you can use this tool, this meditation to also clear up the energy between you and whatever it is the thing that you're struggling with. So, let's begin.

Find yourself a comfortable seated position or lie down, and just let yourself release all of the day so far. Feel free to close your eyes, and drop all of your senses inward. Start to hear the sound of your own breath, feel the body from the inside out, and visualize the shape of your body. Begin to picture your breath going in and out of your body, and sense even deeper than the outer levels of the body, going into the cells, the tissues, muscles and even bones in the body. Sense any emotion that you're holding, and just let your body release even more.

Now, imagine your energetic field, and if that's tricky or doesn't make sense to you, just imagine your entire being, including your body and the space around you, and let yourself open to whatever color you might be if you were a color.

Notice whatever color your energy or your being would be, perhaps it's a combination of colors, let's see if there's an essential color that's yours at this moment, and it can be different from day to day, moment to moment.

Now, picture a person that you've been in touch with today or if you have a sense of where your energy is gone today or if you're holding on to someone else's energy, picture that person. If you're unsure of whose energy you may be holding or absorbed, just begin to picture someone that this energy belongs to. And as you picture that person or group of people, sense whatever color they might be if they had a color. It doesn't matter if you're right or wrong, just feel into the impression that you get.

Now, notice in yourself, where there's any color that belongs to this other person or these people. Picture where that is in your body and how much space it takes up, what it feels like in your body. And with your breath to help it along, send this energy back to whom it belongs to, and watch it release from your body, move into the air and back to anyone that this belongs to, and if that's tricky, you can also try releasing this energy into the universe, letting it dissolve and fade into nothingness.

Notice the sensation or emotion that might come up, whatever it is that you feel inside as you're releasing any energy that belongs to the other person or people, back to where it belongs.

And now, sense into the other person or the people you're noticing, look for where they're holding any of your color of energy. Sense where it is within them or within their energy field, and again, using your breath to support you, breathe this energy back into your body, back into your energy field, back into your space, and your being. Feel all of the energy that's yours come back to you, and notice whatever sensations are happening in the body, whether that's a tingling, a grief, tension, release, fullness, anything, this getting curious about whatever it is that you feel inside, however, this process is for you, and just double checking that you've received all of your energy back. You've reclaimed all that's yours, and that you've released all that's theirs.

Now, notice any part of you that's feeling expanded, grounded, calm or full, anything that feels good, pleasant or even neutral, and let yourself deepen and expand into any pleasant or neutral sensation in the body, any feeling of peace or feeling like yourself, and take as long as you'd like to hear just to feel into your own energy. If it's necessary to repeat the process with any other people you've been in contact with or someone in particular that you're having a challenging time with or challenging lifetime with, feel free to repeat this process as many times as you need, and at the end of your process, take some time to think yourself for clearing your own energy, reclaiming your energy and giving yourself the attention to rejuvenate yourself and cleanse.

And now, I'll leave you with about 30 seconds of silence that you can feel into whatever it is that you're with here and now, and you'll know when this meditation is over when you hear a little bit of music at the end.

Thank you so much for practicing today, and here's some silence for you.

This is the third of three healing experientials related to the episode about energy boundaries, and clearing absorbed energies as well as strengthening your boundaries. You can find the full podcast as well as the other two meditations at CandiceWu.com/energy.

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 practice is an amalgamation of family constellations, healing practices as well as somatic experiencing. Specifically, this healing experiential is to support you in feeling clarity in your order, and position in your ancestry. It is to support you in releasing any responsibility for other's emotions or their fates, what they bear in their life, any losses or traumas or emotions that are unintegrated from your family lineage from anyone in the past, what happens is sometimes we inherit them, we connect with them, and hold them with our family, and this healing experiential can help you release any of those energies or dynamics that belong to someone else, and shift you into the position, your true and natural position of who you are in your family system to receive the best from your family, to receive all the gifts, the strength, the love, and support, and to leave the rest.

This experience might go very deep for you, it might be challenging to connect with or doesn't resonate. See what happens for you, it is meant to be a taste of the family constellations work, and if you do decide to go further with it working with a clinician, whether that's a family constellations practitioner or another ancestral healing worker, in a group or individually, you can go very deep in shifting the connections of the ancestry that you've inherited, and the ways that you absorb others energy or have strong boundaries.

If you feel at any time that what you're experiencing is overwhelming or a bit too distressing, just pause the podcast, take a break, and let yourself rest in the safety of the present moment. Sense your surroundings and just find some grounding, feel free to come back to this exercise anytime or do it with some support, and just one other thing to mention is that our family lineage isn't exactly what equates to who we are in this world, we are much more than what we are given and who we are in a family system. We don't necessarily need to be dependent on the family lineage, but what happens is there are many unconscious dynamics that we are given that we're tied to. So, dynamics that we're not even aware of, and when we bring these to light, we can release them.

When we bring them to light as well, we also can see that we are much more powerful than the dynamics we are given, that we can tap into a spiritual sense that's far beyond our ancestry, that is the divine energy that's everywhere, that is who we are at the source. So, let's transition now and jump into the healing experiential.

For this particular activity, I'd invite you to stand up, and as you stand and I introduced the different aspects of the healing experiential, see what happens to your body position, to the way you are standing, whether it's easy or hard or where your weight is, what sensations you feel and where, what emotions, and anything you notice in terms of your movement or images that pop into your mind, thoughts, etc. So, we're just opening up to all the information that you could possibly receive and sense.

As I introduce each aspect, see what shifts for you and what might be staying the same, and just notice and get curious about that experience. We'll work with two parts your own family system as well as transferring that experience to another person in your life that you may be having a challenge with, whether you're absorbing their energy or you're not sure or there's just some very connected dynamic that you'd like to work with, we'll do those into segments.

The last bit of preparation is please be sure you have about 15 to 30 minutes from this point so that you can absorb and integrate what's happening in this healing experiential as well as give yourself some downtime in case some different emotions come up or you find out a new insight. So, here we go.

As you stand, just notice how you feel in your body right now. Feel free to keep your eyes open or close them or look down, just sensing inward. Feel your breath in and out of your body, and let your awareness go all the way down to your hips, your legs, your ankles, and your feet. Feel the bottoms of your feet, and just let your body be natural in whatever way it's expressing itself now or holding itself, letting your breathing just be the way it is, and if there's any movement or sensation, let that be expressed and felt.

Now, I invite you to sense and imagine behind you, your parents. If you have adoptive parents or other guardians or important people growing up, feel free to invite them as well.

Imagine one parent behind your right shoulder and one behind your left shoulder. If you have a father and a mother, place your father behind your right shoulder and mother behind left, and just notice what it's like as you imagine them right behind you. Notice any emotion, any experience, just getting curious and letting it be witnessed.

Now, invite your grandparents to stand behind them also in that order. Notice what it's like that they're in the picture as well. See what changes in your body, what might shift, and now, invite your great grandparents. Again, see any shift in yourself, any experience of sensation or emotion, and whether you know your great grandparents or not or even your grandparents, just inviting the presence of that person. It doesn't matter if they're dead or alive or if you were close to them or not, just sensing a presence, and let's continue to your great great grandparents, and farther back adding in their parents, and another two generations at least. Feel free to imagine as far back as you can imagine in your lineage, and just sense the magnificence of this family line that's still alive and strong today.

So, I invite you to turn around and face your family system, and just sense that this is your position. You are a child of your parents, and they're bigger than you. And take a moment if you feel that you are in the right place, just sensing into where your body might want to go. Sometimes, if you've learned early on unconsciously, that perhaps your parent needed someone to help them with certain emotions or your grandparent was absent, then you may have energetically moved to a different position without knowing it or perhaps knowing it. That's called parentification when you become the parent of your parent in some way. Sense whether any part of you has fitted position into another place, and not just ground herself in this place, coming back to your true and natural position of being a child to these parents.

We'll do one more piece of information gathering. If you skim the line of your lineage, just with an open heart and seeing beyond the mind. If you sense into your parents, then your grandparents, then farther and further back, do so slowly and just see if you are called to sense into any one particular person more, and what emotions you feel as you just hover your awareness over each person.

Notice if you feel a certain emotion, as you're aware of any particular person, for example, you might feel sadness as you look towards your grandma or you might feel anger or tension somewhere as you just sense back into the line of your family, and get curious about where you're feeling that and with home. This is not a process of blaming or anything at all, just gathering information about your sense and connection, and it's not necessary to know the exact facts or details, but you might have an awareness of what's connected with these emotions, what kinds of losses, traumas, challenges or situations may connect with the emotions you're sensing and picking up on. If something feels particularly intense, notice that as well.

Now, wherever you felt any emotion, whether that's intense or something that seems connected with someone else in your family line, see what happens if you just release any of those emotions back to who they belong.

You can even imagine a color or shape of emotion or energy and just let it go back to where this belongs, who it might belong to, and notice what happens in you as you do that. You may be carrying someone else's emotions in the family line, especially if that emotion was unintegrated or there was some sort of survival mode or having to move forward after something challenging or overwhelming.

So, check-in with yourself. See if there's anything else that you need to release back to where it belongs, back to whose story that belongs to. It might not be an emotion, it might just be a sense of a feeling or some sort of energy, and then coming back to your sense and grounding of yourself, and as you look upon this family line, your ancestry, feel in your true and natural position, your right position. Feel into the strength, whatever strength there is of this family line and the gifts that you can receive from them. See this family line connected all the way to the source that's behind everyone, and let herself receive from this position, the best of the lineage. Feel free to open your arms as your palms up, as if to receive anything that this family system wants to provide you or give you.

Try out the words: thank you or I receive only the best from you, and I leave the rest or I'm responsible only for myself, you are responsible for you and their support behind me.

Notice any emotions or sensations in your body as you experience these words. Again, the words are: I receive the best from you, and I leave the rest. I'm responsible only for myself, you are responsible for you and their support behind me.

And if that's challenging to see that support or that responsibility, in others in your family line, look farther back to see where there is support, where there is strength, responsibility enoughness, and take a few more moments to feel into anything that's strengthening, grounding or beautiful in this lineage.

Now, thank yourself and thank your family lineage for showing up and showing all of this to you, and when you feel ready, I invite you to turn back around so that they're all behind you. Feel their presence behind you just the best, just the love, the strength, and the gifts as you face the world.

Notice how your body stands. Feel your breath. Notice what it's like to be in your body at this time.

And now, I invite you to segment 2, inviting someone that's close to you forward, someone that you feel challenged with, perhaps someone you feel like you are absorbing their energy or their emotions, invite whoever that is, forward in front of you. You can be as close or as far away as you need to be to feel comfortable.

This may also be someone that you feel responsible for that it isn't your place to feel that way, with that you tend to give advice to or feel lethargic or drained after you see them. You look towards them. I want you to imagine their family line all behind them, just as you did yourself, their parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and just keep going as far back as you can imagine, even if you don't know any of these people or they're dead or alive. You can also imagine any other loving support that this person has to stand behind them, and feel whatever it is you feel as you look upon them with all of these people behind them supporting.

Now, feel the words, just as you did for yourself with your family line: I am responsible for only myself, you are responsible for you, and to have support behind you. And see the strength of their lineage, whether or not they can see it themselves. See farther back if you need to, the source, the love, or the light behind all of this family.

See that this person has everything they need in their family system, and within themselves, to be whole, to heal if they need to heal, to be themselves, and that you are not responsible for them. You're responsible for only you. See them with this deep respect and honoring that they are responsible for their own journey just as your parents are, just as each member of your family is, best as you care for yourself.

Take as long as you'd like here to sense into this dynamic and into this presence, into whatever it is you're feeling inside, letting it be noticed, letting it move if it wants to move, and when you feel complete, thank all of the parts of this person and their family line for showing up and release them into the universe. Thank your family line, your ancestry for showing up and just release them as well, and thank yourself for doing this very deep practice and exploring in this way.

Take your time to feel into whatever it is that came up for you, and whatever it is that you feel now, and I'll leave you with a little bit of silence that you can just breathe through your body wherever you're feeling any sensation or emotion, anything at all. You'll know when this guided practice is over when you hear a little bit of music at the end.

Thank you so much for practicing today and I'll see you next time.