Past Life Trauma: Unfolding Freedom — EP49

Candice Wu 0:00
Welcome to the episode about my personal stories of past life and past life trauma, the relevance of past life stories to being and loving yourself, and how you can begin to access the wisdom and parts of you that transcend time.

Candice Wu 0:16
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 0:29
My name is Candice Wu and I'm a holistic healing facilitator, intuitive coach, and artist sharing my personal journey of vulnerability, offering meditations and guided healing support and having Co-Creative Conversations with healers and wellness practitioners from all over the world.

Candice Wu 0:51
The Embody Podcast is made possible by my supporters on Patreon. I am so grateful for the people that are donating some amount of money even if it's $1 a month, it helps out a lot with the backend production and all of the little details that go into creating each episode.

Candice Wu 1:11
Thank you so much to the people who just joined on who are contributing not only their money, but just to know you're out there, your energy in support of the podcast is just so touching and means a lot to me. If you're interested in checking out how you can contribute or support, you can go to my page at CandiceWu.com/Patreon. And on that page, you'll also find that there are some gifts for you if you make a donation at certain amounts. So if you're interested in something like a personalized healing experience, that I intuit just for you based on what you're going through, or what you'd like to create for yourself in the next coming months. I record those and send them straight to your email or if you'd like to be part of the Embodied Group Healing Session that happens monthly, or the Q and A or anything else that's on there, just check it out.

Candice Wu 2:10
And I'm just so grateful that all of you are out there listening and sharing the podcast to people that you think might be interested. All of that just goes a long way and really allows the spark to grow. Thank you.

Candice Wu 2:26
So as we jump into the episode today, I just want to give you an update on where I am. So if you love hearing about my travels and what's going on. And right now I am still in Spain. I went to Tarifa for some time. Tarifa is one of the most southern points of Spain. That's right next to and across the water from Morocco, which was just incredible to see that Morocco was just like across this water, it looks like I could even swim across and it was magnificent.

Candice Wu 2:58
So I was there for some time and experienced some challenges with finding the right place to live where I could have silence and Wi-Fi and feel like I was nourishing myself. So after learning a few hard lessons, my partner and I decided to come back over to near Malaga a little bit outside of it, where we're near the coast. And as I look out right now I can see the water right there, it's sunny, the skyline is meeting up with the water, both different shades of blue. It's beautiful. And between here and the water it's just a bunch of small, little white, Spanish homes with that sort of red terracotta roofing that waves over it. There are lots of trees, including some palm trees just waving in the wind. And it's a beautiful day, even though it's winter here but quite mild.

Candice Wu 4:01
Lately, I've been exploring and working with the theme of pleasure and how much pleasure I'm allowed to have. And my mental mind says all of it. But how does that play out into reality? Can I make it a reality? That I do things for just the sake of pleasure and joy? And how much of my time can be that? And how much of what I do is that? Can I connect everything to pleasure and joy? And what doesn't connect? What needs to shift? What can just fall off the list because it's not necessary anymore, or it's not important anymore?

Candice Wu 4:46
And I'm also exploring pleasure in relationship, clearing up and completing some beliefs that I've had about being able to have pleasure in relationship especially in relation to masculine energy. And all of this pleasure exploration relates to the stories I want to tell you today about riding horses, and it relates to the desire to be with horses more often. I just feel such a strong connection with horses. It's like something deep in my being that loves them and wants to feel communication with them and have this inner dialogue that strengthens itself through being around them. And it goes as far as just wanting to spend like all day with horses and asking myself how can I make that a reality? And do I want to?

Candice Wu 5:45
So the stories today I want to tell you about past life trauma, I think, connect right up with that love for horses. And I think that this will come clear to me as the week's go on. And as I share this story with you today. Is any of this resonating with you? Do you explore what brings you joy and allow yourself that just for joy sake, not for any other purpose. But what brings you pleasure? What brings you the feeling of complete happiness for yourself?

Candice Wu 6:28
You think these are essential questions, and it's the guide to who we are, and what we deeply want in this life. So let's jump into the topic of this episode which is just so yummy and juicy.

Candice Wu 6:43
I've been interested in past lives since early High School. And the first encounter that I had with some stories around past lives were in the book Many Lives, Many Masters by Dr. Brian Weiss, and he is a psychiatrist who became interested and fascinated with past life stories and reincarnation because of a client that he had who he called Catherine in his book.

Candice Wu 7:10
And he was very scientific apparently and didn't really believe much other than what was scientifically proven and credible in the Western science world. And so it's just quite an interesting story to hear how he went from there to delving into this client's experience with her. She had anxiety attacks and some other symptoms where once she revealed certain memories that were not related to this life, those symptoms went away and that sent Dr. Weiss into this fascinating world of looking into past lives as a reality and or modality for healing.

Candice Wu 8:04
This book was fascinating, but what really got me hooked and starting to believe in past lives is this story about Shanti Devi. I want to share with you this story which is reprinted on Carol Bowman's website. Carol Bowman is a past life therapist that I've also read about and have been interested in. But this story is posted on her website and it just touched me in a way that got me believing something.

Candice Wu 8:37
So the story goes that Shanti Devi was born in 1926 in Delhi. By the time she was four years old, she began talking about her husband and her children and this town called Mathura. I'm not sure if I'm going to say all the names in the story very accurately, but I'll try my best. She spoke of the cloth shop that she owned with her husband, her son, She spoke of connections and incidences in her life in Mathura with her husband. And during meals, she would say that she eat different kinds of sweets in Mathura and sometimes talked about the different dresses she used to wear while her own mother was dressing her. And then she'd always mention really distinctive features about her husband like a wart on his left cheek and reading glasses that he wore. And she even knew about certain locations like that their cloth shop was located in front of a specific temple.

Candice Wu 9:40
Her parents thought it was a fantasy for some time and just really didn't take much notice. But by the time she was six years old, and she continued to give detailed accounts of parts of their lives, especially about her death following childbirth, they were unsure of what to do. And this mystery began to open even deeper.

Candice Wu 10:06
The parents started to wonder if these memories were part of a past life, and began to open that up. So it was about eight or nine years old when she insisted that she go to this village and to see her husband and her family. It was customary in India that wives don't utter the names of their husbands and so she wouldn't even say her husband's name. But one of her teachers told her that if she told him her husband's name, that he would take her there. So she did. And they made arrangements that one of her husband's cousins would come to Delhi. And upon his arrival, she recognized him as her husband's cousin and gave him many details about the house in Mathura and her husband as well as where she had buried some money.

Candice Wu 11:01
So with that, her husband decided to come visit. And even upon the visit, when the initial cousin decided to introduce him, the husband as someone else, she blushed and said no, this is my husband it's not the older brother of this man. So this man Kedarnath, again I don't know if I'm saying the names right, but doing my best. He asked her all these questions and she answered all of them correctly as far as their life together previously, and what she remembered. And he was completely convinced when she told him about the story of how they managed to become pregnant, because she had arthritis and was not totally physically in good shape. She told him the story of how they had intercourse and how they managed to become pregnant. And after that Kedarnath was convinced that this, in fact, was his wife.

Candice Wu 12:23
The money that she had buried was in fact, not there anymore, because her husband said he had taken it out. But through the course of their connection and meeting with the rest of the family that she claimed was hers. Everyone was crying and feeling that connection, it seemed of a knowing that they were family. And she was able to name all the different people that were there and recognize who they were. She was able to recognize her husband's favorite meals and dishes. And it seems that the family was quite convinced that she was who she said she was, who was named Lugdi in that past life. She had died after giving birth to a second child, the first child was stillborn. And the second child was C-section and nine days later she died.

Candice Wu 13:09
So here I'm not asking you to believe this story or believe in past lives at all. But I just wanted to share how I got into my curiosity of past lives. And actually, I think in that moment, when I read that story, I believed it. Her stories spread all over the country and media and Mahatma Gandhi heard about it and called her. And at that time, he even appointed 15 prominent people, including national leaders, members of the media, and researchers to look into her story.

Candice Wu 13:45
So there are always skeptics and people that are going to be cutting down her story. But many people do believe in it. And for me, it just sparked something quite magical. The fact that a four-year-old child was speaking about her past life, her husband and children and all the details of this village without ever having an experience with it in this life, just made sense to me. Why are there certain parts of us that seem so developed? Or are super gifts that perhaps we never cultivated in this life? Why do we have certain fears that are so peculiar, deep? And what about memories and strong connections to certain experiences or cultures.

Candice Wu 14:31
So what I've seen over and over and my experience and my work with people and healing is that over and over, time and space don't matter to the soul and heart. I've experienced where we can be bound to an experience that is incomplete. And no matter how many years go by, it doesn't change. People say time heals. But I don't believe that. Time can be correlated with healing that it can happen at the same time. And sometimes, just leaving things and letting the body's intelligence heal can be the most useful and powerful way to heal. But when something is so traumatic or overwhelming, that our physiology, our energy, and body cannot heal it we've we get stuck. And that experience holds over time. And it doesn't matter how much time goes by, it doesn't change, or it can even grow stronger, so that you listen.

Candice Wu 15:34
So the unconscious pulls the memories for things that are long forgotten in the conscious mind. But the feeling sense and the context still live in us because they haven't completed themselves or they need to be known in some way or brought back to our entirety to our wholeness. They're stored for later understanding or reclaiming or completion.

Candice Wu 16:02
We see that with trauma in our personal lives where certain experiences that didn't get to be completed, whether that's a need to find safety, or a reaching out movement that didn't get to happen with a loved one, early tell experiences, all these are still waiting for us to be healed and to be recovered. And that trajectory of completion spans across lives if you do believe in this.

Candice Wu 16:33
In family constellations work, I see time and again that the soul doesn't care about time. So a hurt that was experienced by grandmother, or great grandmother, even farther back, can pass down the generations and be repeated, or someone later in the later generations can connect with this because the soul of the family wants to heal. And it's all for the purpose of being complete and whole and knowing all the aspects of us and moving through the story. So that we're back to who we are, we're back to love and freedom or back to the source of everything, the connection, and oneness.

Candice Wu 17:26
When that is disconnected or split off or undone, incomplete, our soul and psyche want for this to complete. It wants to bring us to the experience that will tell us and remind us of what did happen. So that we can restore the love that's flowing through all of us and with family constellations flowing through the lineage. So that's one place I've seen where time doesn't matter, the heartbreak of Great Grandma, when she lost a baby, it can flow downward. And that heartbreak doesn't care if it happened 100 years ago. It's still there if it wasn't felt at the time.

Candice Wu 18:15
With the modality of family constellations, I've also worked with past lives. And when people see a past life or piece of their soul constellated in this format, there's some resonating factor that they have felt, wow, this really pertains to be now or this somehow makes sense in me. So the things that don't make sense in our mind, we don't always like to accept. But when we feel something that we know has something to do with us, you can't mistake that. It just doesn't always match up with our logical sense that wants to clarify everything in a concrete way.

Candice Wu 19:04
So I think if you're open to past life trauma or if you are interested in it, or have already delved into it, that is a key factor, letting go of the need to explain it all, and for all to make logical sense. And tuning into the way the heart and spirit and soul make sense. And that is through the way of love that is through who we are and our way of being. And when things violate that or hurt that or get stuck about that, we want to find reconnection again.

Candice Wu 19:46
So why did I want to bring this up now and today? Well, first, it's a topic that I haven't talked too much about. And if you've been listening to the podcasts, there have been times I've mentioned either past life experience of mine or the idea of past lives. And then I always say this disclaimer of if you believe in it.

Candice Wu 20:06
Well, today I want to share that I really do believe in it. And, it has helped many of my clients that do believe in it. And if you don't, I do have clients that don't believe in a past life. That's okay too. Because the patterns exist whether or not we believe in something before this life.

Candice Wu 20:27
So why I want to bring this up today is actually that you might have heard in a couple podcasts ago that I was riding and I fell off my horse twice. I was practicing cantering. And this was still pretty new to me at that time. I was taking lessons in Michigan before I left for Europe and was just beginning to canter with the horse that I've been riding on for a couple of months. So I was used to being on that horse and being on a much bigger horse. And the first time with this horse and a new teacher as well. It was pretty scary. So I fell off twice, the same exact way, rounding a corner while cantering. I was losing my balance. And I just couldn't really even see, I felt like things were blurry.

Candice Wu 21:20
Both falls were a bit scary and startling and painful. But in the grand scheme, I knew it wasn't that bad. But knowing what I know through Somatic Experiencing and how the nervous system can hold trauma if it doesn't get to complete the experience of coming back to safety in the moment or later, I just stayed with myself and did exactly what I knew how to do with letting my body take the lead and take it's time to come back up. I wasn't needing to get up and get back on it right away. So I just did it slowly. And what I did feel somewhat ready, I got back on.

Candice Wu 22:05
Well, when I got home that day, I was in a lot of pain, even though the falls were quite minor. And what we know through Somatic Experiencing is that, when falls are minor falls or accidents, they can actually leave a much greater impact on the nervous system. Symptoms can appear later that we just don't think twice about. Don't think that they're related, but they do stem from these little falls over and over. And the body repeats itself in terms of the way you fell. If it didn't feel like it resolved itself in coming back to safety or something around that experience.

Candice Wu 22:51
As I was working with myself with these falls, I became very well aware of how numb and disconnected and overwhelmed I was feeling while I was getting ready to move into the canter from a trot with the horse. And as I even recalled the experience, it was like I couldn't see anything around me, couldn't have any clarity in my vision. And all of that is to show how overwhelmed my nervous system was. And likely in a phrase or a tonic and mobility state where I just froze up and I wasn't really in my body. And my body capacity also shut down. So it wasn't really able to even be fully present to what my body needed to do even though my instructor was clearly telling me what to do, I couldn't even register.

Candice Wu 23:50
So I combed through this experience several times. And so much of that fear moved out of my body tingling and heat, and tears. And yet, as many times as I went through it, there still seemed to be a giant fear lurking behind, I just felt it. I felt like this is much more than these two falls could have warranted. This has to do with something much deeper.

Candice Wu 24:22
And for me, I know that experiences can layer on top of one another experiences through the ancestry or our personal history, the collective past life. So all these were coming into my awareness, and I like to go to the root of some things so that it can clear up deeply. And as much of it as possible can clear out of my body and my system so that I can feel safe and whole again.

Candice Wu 24:56
So it wasn't until I was working with my healing coach, the healer that I work with. Suddenly she just said, “Candice, do you feel that this has to do with past life trauma?”. And as soon as she said that, it seemed like something in me was validated. And something that I just was on the tip of my tongue. And I just burst into tears. And all this fear and terror just rose up into my body and started to move. And I said yes. And it just seemed immediately to release. The next question she asked me was, is it necessary to know the details? Because sometimes it has been necessary. Sometimes the story does need to be told or heard or acknowledged.

Candice Wu 25:47
So I asked myself, and the feeling sense I got was no, I don't need to know the details. I just needed to feel through that fear and recognize that it was something to do with the past life.

Candice Wu 26:01
Well, the story goes on where my healer says, “Okay, I have this sense right now and can I tell you the image I see?” She's super intuitive and I believe she's quite clairvoyant. And she's been really right on about a lot of images and senses that she's had about past life, ancestry, my personal life.

Candice Wu 26:24
So, of course, I wanted to hear what she said to me was, “Candice, this is the image I got. That in the past life, you were being told by many people around you what to do. And they kept feeding you information, and you did not like it, it didn't seem to align with you. And it was really challenging. And so you got really stubborn and decided to go your own way. But you got in trouble. And so you came in with this conflict of do I follow myself? Or do I follow others?”

Candice Wu 27:03
That even is a question shows the polarity of that energy that this conflict that existed in me, because of course, we can listen to both, we can tune in both ways and find that helpful. But somehow this was so against me in a way where I felt it was that I got so stubborn and then it led me to travel.

Candice Wu 27:27
And as she told me this, I just cried even more, because, at the end of my lesson with this horse Jack, he was so stubborn. He did not want to do anything I asked him to do and this was just grooming. This was just taking off the saddle and brushing him, like he just was so unhappy and stubborn and didn't want to move if I asked him to. And I didn't quite understand it. But somehow we were quite connected in that experience.

Candice Wu 28:01
And when she said that I had this experience and was really stubborn about it. More emotions in my body released at that point, something clicked. And it was clear that the horse had picked up on that energy that was coming through around me being stubborn, and he was becoming stubborn. And it was just quite magical how this all began to unfold.

Candice Wu 28:28
As the days went on after that, I felt like I was grieving I had this sense that I had died while on the horse. Which wasn't such a bad fate, I guess, you know, there are worse ways to die. But something about the experience of that felt so tragic and painful and terrifying.

Candice Wu 28:51
And so just to recognize that the feeling was that I died while on that horse seemed important for something in me to heal. And for me, it's not so important to know whether or not this was all true. We don't need to dig into the facts or, you know, try to figure it out. I don't even know where I would get that evidence. But the evidence I have is that my body just felt like yes. And even though I was clearing up a lot of the fear and the trauma through Somatic Experiencing and what my body needed in the present form, recognizing that had to do with something way back seem to give much more healing and release.

Candice Wu 29:40
So following this, about three days later, I wrote again, and I was still scared. I didn't want to canter with this horse. I just wasn't used to riding such a big horse. But I did feel like the fear had moved quite a bit. And that had gotten to the bottom of it.

Candice Wu 29:59
So recently, I started to ride again, after taking about two weeks off, and I don't have that same amount of fear. I think I just have what feels appropriate to this situation in time, of course. I don't really want to fall off a horse. And so my body is a little bit scared. But the amount of fear that seemed quite unreasonable to the present life, that seems all gone. But not just that, what I've gained from this was a lot of wisdom about, I don't even know, in a way it feels like something is integrated in me around knowing and trusting myself. What's happening at the moment is that I tend to forget what has healed and what came from it after it happens. And that's how I know it's cleared. But now that I'm talking about it, I do remember much more. That what I gained from recovering this past life experience and honoring the grief was a lot of grief moved out of me, a lot of fear moved out.

Candice Wu 31:10
And that wisdom of being able to trust my knowing, my deep knowing of something for myself, is being restored and it's still continuing. But I felt a greater sense of trust in myself and knowing what to do for myself. And even being able to tap into the wisdom of knowing how to be with horses and connecting with them. Because I always have felt that there's some deep connection that I have with horses. But I wasn't sure how to access that.

Candice Wu 31:49
And this experience has helped me to trust in the fact that somewhere, my body knows, my soul knows how to be with horses, and how to trust my decisions. Also the stubbornness, I can use that tool if I need to. And I can see where my stubbornness came from, and release some self-judgment about how stubborn I have been in the past and some of the situations that I've caught myself in because of stubbornness.

Candice Wu 32:21
And then all of this moving through, I also remember the first time I saw a horse wasn't that long ago. The first time that I was up close to a horse and working with a horse, I actually was scared. I felt like this was such a big animal and so much power. So with connecting with past experiences, I feel so much for you and it gives me a lot of clarity and support and validation in who I am today. The things that I experienced, as well as feeling more in myself.

Candice Wu 32:55
There are other experiences that I felt very strongly about as well.

Candice Wu 33:14
I read this book about a young girl in the Holocaust. And it was not a true story. But when I read it, I just felt so enamored with this story. So touched in a very deep way. And I felt like it resonated with who I was. Well, we could say symbolically, yes. That resonated with my experience of hiding myself and not being able to be fully seen. I was a really shy girl and very afraid to be myself. I didn't feel supported in being myself.

Candice Wu 33:38
Well, where did that come from? Who knows? But I do want to share that I felt that I was connected in some deeper, deeper way to the Holocaust. And in later years, I actually had dreams where my best friend and I would be escaping by train or something. But we were escaping the Holocaust. And when I woke up from those dreams, I just felt like that wasn't just some imaginative story. This is something very real to me.

Candice Wu 34:13
So who knows what that was. But I still do feel that connection. Although that connection has decreased for me, I still feel very strongly about the pain of the Holocaust, and what went on for a lot of Jews and also all the people that were connected with a Holocaust in any way, a very strong passive experience that seems to completely connect with who I am today as a healer, that I have mentioned before in the podcast. I think it was the one about Spiritual Crisis Episode 13. But being a shaman and being a witch in a past life, I'm not sure if it's important, which it was, although I think that I've had different lives as healers.

Candice Wu 35:02
So this particular feeling is around being exiled as a witch, as someone who has a lot of healing power. And knowing and it was really gifted, that people got scared, and that wasn't allowed. And I was condemned for those powers. And I did a lot of healing about a year or two ago around this where it felt like my leg had been cut off. I even had physical pain in this life around it. And also experiences of being whipped and burned.

Candice Wu 35:48
So those experiences seem completely foreign to this life. I was never abused in that way. In this life, I was never physically hurt in this life at all even in my lineage. I don't know any experiences of my family lineage where they were whipped like that, or where they had limbs cut off.

Candice Wu 36:15
So primarily when I sense into my past life experiences, it just has the sense and I trust it. And as I follow it, it leads me somewhere else to more of myself and healing.

Candice Wu 36:47
So I'm not so attached to to the story of what did happen or who I was, even though it's still kind of fun to hold those or to tell a little bit about those. But more so with the intention of freeing myself of the ways of the past or the ways that I got stuck. Whenever there's something traumatic, we get stuck. And so it frees me up to be more of who I am today. So with this experience of being a witch, and whipped and hurt, for my powers, I came into this life, whatever life that was so I'm not concerned with the order of things.

Candice Wu 37:11
But in this life, I felt very much like spirit and emotions, healing powers, intuition, psychic powers, and energy work all of that in for most of my life, probably 25 to 28 years of my life. That was something that felt like a No, it felt like taboo, and it felt like I would be judged for it. And even early in my career as the therapist, I wasn't sure that I could unleash those powers and bring those powers to the work because Western science and the way of research-based studies and practices, it just didn't feel like it had a place.

Candice Wu 38:06
So while all that's true, there is judgment for certain alternative practices, or indigenous practices, or healing powers, there's always skepticism and people who perhaps abuse it or are not really using it for good or for healing, or for pure purposes that exists. But for me, my experience was so much that I would judge myself and I would keep those powers down and put them away to the point where it felt like bringing them forward would bring me death. It was that scary.

Candice Wu 38:47
And so, of course, bringing that forward now in this life, in this time period isn't all that scary? Like it wouldn't bring me death. And so when I experienced that something feels that life-threatening, I know that it must be because of something else that wants to tell its story now through me, whether it was past life in my soul, or through my lineage, or through the archetypal energy of the collective, so something wants to come through.

Candice Wu 39:20
The other piece I'll mention is that I've worked with my feet a lot. My ankles are not the strongest. And I've had to work a lot with what's been the blockage there and strengthening that through themes of the root energy, first Chakra, which relates to community and the way that I belong, the safety. So you can see how all of that connects to being exiled and whipped and almost killed off.

Candice Wu 39:58
But this, when it got brought to my attention, just seem to touch the exact right place in me that perhaps in my heritage, being Chinese, that Chinese foot binding affected the women before me and therefore affected me. And that has to do with cultural energy and the lineage. But someone who does believe in past lives once suggested to me that perhaps I was someone in my ancestry or that I was somebody who was a woman who had my feet bound.

Candice Wu 40:37
So if you're not aware of this practice, Chinese women have been binding their feet for a long time. It doesn't, I don't know of accounts of it happening anymore. But part of the story is that women bound their feet so that they could find a man to marry because it would make them more beautiful. And it was seen as the higher class. And the more a woman would be beautiful if they were delicate, and had small feet.

Candice Wu 41:13
So there's obviously a lot tied up with that, the relationship of men and women, masculine and feminine, and power involved in that. But there is a strong connection with me and where that came from. I don't know exactly. But I have worked with that in my own healing. And it is brought me a lot more strength in my feet physically. But more so, the reclaiming of I have a right to be here in my full self. I am beautiful with my whole body and the way I am versus having to change myself, for anyone, for a man. So just wanted to mention that piece as well, the crossover of lineage and culture with a past life, perhaps.

Candice Wu 42:07
So now that I've shared some of my stories, you might be wondering, why is this important or relevant? Does it really matter? Why do we need to go there? And as I said earlier, in my opinion, it's not important to go to past life experiences, to dwell on the past or to get stuck there. But for me, it's number one kind of interesting, because it shows me all these dimensions of myself. It helps me feel connected to more people in difference. But I think the biggest thing that it can be relevant to life now is that it has everything to do with the way of being that we are now. It can relate to patterns of the way you are or habits, fears that you have, ways of moving around the world, even physically, as well as how you feel inside yourself, could relate to situations that happened in a past life that were tragic or traumatic, or where you died suddenly, and life got cut short.

Candice Wu 43:20
And so the beliefs that you have now, whether they're related to who you are, or how the world works, whether they're related to money, or relationships, you're worth, or ability to love, or who you can love, what you can love, how you can be all of those can connect up with past life experiences. But it's only if you're curious, and it's only if you want to go there with your healing.

Candice Wu 43:48
It can be incredibly freeing to know that this happened in a past life and that's what reverberated into this life. I can complete it if it needs something. And I don't need to repeat it. And in fact, it can bring me some piece of wisdom. Usually, it can bring back a piece of a gift that I might need in this life. For example, the knowledge and wisdom and the knowing, the communication with horses that I so desire, it's already there, you just need to open that up. And I think that the fear that was related to the past life trauma needed to clear out before I could truly embrace the rest of the wisdom.

Candice Wu 44:37
So if you do tap into a past life, it can free you from the binds of having to repeat that pattern, to repeat the suffering. It's there so you can learn something more about yourself. All of the dimensions of who you are want to be acknowledged and past lives can give some key to that.

Candice Wu 44:58
If we can see the soul as the expanse of our wisdom, as the expanse of our consciousness, rather than wisdom only being found in this life only, we can gain so much more. Because we can only do so much in one life. But we can use all sorts of parts of us different tools for different purposes. And they can come in and weave in and bring us even more in this life now.

Candice Wu 45:26
It's a combination of energy, over time, a collection of energy and ways of knowledge and wisdom that can be used for eternity. But we don't necessarily want to repeat the suffering. And so by going to that experience, if there was a trauma, you can clear that up so that the wisdom can be gained.

Candice Wu 45:48
And I think the biggest thing that working with past life experiences helps me with is that I can love more of myself. Not only more of myself, but I can be clearer and freer and more authentic to my spirit. Because the soul carries all sorts of attachments and experiences. The spirit which is the energy of creation and oneness, that energy can move through me with more ease. And I can be more of my essential being.

Candice Wu 46:24
So truly loving myself in a deeper way. Loving who I am, rather than all of the traumas that happened to me or all the fears that developed over time, all the distortions that can be in more truth about myself.

Candice Wu 46:44
So how do you know something is a past life trauma? Or how do you know about your past lives and access it? Who can you go to for support with it? And how do you open this up for yourself? This was a question that was posed to me just recently, and it was just such perfect timing of course.

Candice Wu 47:07
There are all sorts of healers and therapists, as well as intuitive that can support you in validating what you already know deep down or opening up what might be there in the unconscious. Some people use hypnotist and past life regression. Some people work with past life, and reincarnation and experiences of past life. Shamans, and also people who read Akashic records can tune into something of past life.

Candice Wu 47:46
This is something that I've developed for myself, because I've been curious about it, but just trusting my own senses and my intuition, and allowing the images and dreams, and sense of something to come through. No matter if it makes sense or not, in my logical mind, but to let the soul give some semblance of a different kind of logic, the logic of love.

Candice Wu 48:15
So you don't necessarily need someone to read your past life for you. And it might not even be relevant. You might be curious about different aspects of past life, and find that it has some relevance or not. It can open up something and support you in realizing something for yourself. But it might be interesting to come from what is interesting, or can support you in yourself now, and to see what relates to that so that it's relevant to your specific growth in the present day.

Candice Wu 48:51
Over time, I've been able to just sense into my own past life and distinguish whether it's past life or stuff with my lineage or personal to this life. And a lot of times it has that crossover, as I said. But I've been also able to intuit or sense that with others and for others with their collaboration. If someone's open to that experience, it can really illuminate very easily.

Candice Wu 49:21
But what I encourage you to do if you are interested, is to open up that trust for yourself. And just scan your world and your psyche for the images and messages that you have received, the little inkling that something is resonating with you about some experience, some image, some thought, some new story, you heard, that's always an interesting piece of what you latch on to when things come your way. Just start listening as one way to let your unconscious began to speak to you, so that you can learn more.

Candice Wu 50:04
I definitely encourage you to work with your own Embodiment, meaning, be in your body, take care of your body but also let your awareness go into your body, whether that's through yoga and movement. But do it with awareness. Be aware of what's going on inside, tune into your sensations, your emotions, your movement, and what the body tells you. As well as feeling that you are in your body as much as you can through the day. And doing healing work like Somatic Experiencing or other body-centered practices that clear up any numbness and nervous system, fight and flight responses that can get in the way of feeling embodied and enjoying being in your body.

Candice Wu 51:00
Another thing you can do is connect with your inner knowing and your inner wisdom. As I mentioned, you can be open to the little messages you get, that's part of it. That's one way of doing it. And another way of doing it is sitting with yourself and connecting with yourself, loving yourself by listening inside and talking to yourself like you're a friend connecting with a friend. And just asking, you know what is there to know right now, we can't exactly pressure past life experiences to come through because they will come through when they do and there may be some sense in you when something does come through that it's related to a past life.

Candice Wu 51:49
Another thing you can do is just open to seeing the world and your life like a dream, or a painting something artful that isn't a coloring book with a set of guidelines of mental explanations and logic and direction. But an unfolding source of knowing that offers messages, wisdom, and knowledge of a different kind, through pictures, through a flush of your face, through a gut reaction.

Candice Wu 52:27
Starting to trust that your body can tell you more than your mind might be able to about your experience, your whole experience. And let things that don't necessarily make sense to your mental mind be explored. Let them be honored through drawing or journaling. Or just letting your imagination go with it and seeing where that takes you. That's exactly the way I discovered certain experiences and let the healing happen.

Candice Wu 52:59
We can trust our inner being to show us a clue. And if we follow that clue, and honor it and acknowledge it, respect it. We take that seriously enough, then it'll show us more.

Candice Wu 53:15
So try this out for yourself. I would love to hear how this works out for you. And what starts to open up for you is you allow these awarenesses is to come into your being, allowed us to open up for yourself. And also, if you've already delved into the world of past life, I would love to hear if this was supportive to you or brought up something new for you.

Candice Wu 53:42
And if you have past life experiences that come up or ideas, questions, curiosities, feel free to connect with me, email me or message me in some way. And I would love to hear from you. If you're someone who would like support with this, to have validation or go deeper, to really use past life experiences to heal, feel free to reach out to me I would love to work with you one on one or you can join the Embodied healing group that can support that as well or I'm happy to give referrals to you of people that are either in your area or online that might support you as well.

Candice Wu 54:21
As we're ending this podcast today, I'm just smiling because, for me, this is really fun. It's really exciting when we can come from the angle of love, curiosity, and embracing of all the ways that our inner being tries to show us wisdom, wisdom that we knew long ago, wisdom that we are just learning right now. But it's so fun to collect all these parts of us that can bring us forward into life and where we can feel even more like ourselves.

Candice Wu 54:59
Thanks for listening in today and just sending you lots of love and wishing you that you love yourself even more deeply today.

Candice Wu 55:10
Before you go today, I would love to invite you to be part of the Embody community, you can receive my newsletter every other week. This is full of self-love support and healing tips as well as updates about what's going on with me and the themes that I'm exploring. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/Embody or you can join the Facebook group. It's called the Embody community where I offer about 5 to 10 minute videos of healing experiences or meditations that tap into self-love or being in your body healing, anxiety, all sorts of things, feel free to join me there and tune into that safe space where we can support each other in healing and loving ourselves.

Candice Wu 56:00
Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm just enjoying the candle that's sitting next to me and thinking of all of you out there that are listening. I appreciate each and every one of you. And I love the messages that I get from time to time, just let me know that you're out there. Take care and I'll see you next time on the Embody Podcast.