Candice Wu 0:00

This episode is about receiving, specifically taking versus receiving, and how we block ourselves from receiving what we desire, how we can be in the state of being that allows us to receive what we desire, and how all of that relates to embodiment and all of the emotions that we have the capacity to feel.

Candice Wu 0:22

Hello, and welcome. You’re listening to the Embody Podcast, a show about remembering and embodying your true nature, inner wisdom, embodied healing, and self-love.

Candice Wu 0:36

My name is Candice Wu, and I’m a holistic healing facilitator, intuitive coach, and artist, sharing my personal journey of vulnerability, offering meditations and guided healing support, and having co-creative Conversations with healers and wellness practitioners from all over the world.

Candice Wu 0:57

I’m so excited to announce to you that the Ally With Death Experiential audio is finally out after, I don’t know, if you’ve been listening in for the last year at some point, I’ve been speaking about it even a year ago, but this is a really beautiful, provocative, moody and stimulating audio-guided experience, that is me guiding you through a simulation of your death and what you need to let go of what wants to die that needs to die in your life or end what you’re ready to release to make space for the next step of your life, how you want to be in your life that feels like you, and what is life-giving for you.

Candice Wu 1:47

This audio experience is really special because it features music by Larry Saint Germain. He plays the hand pan and it just bubbles and stirs, and shakes up what’s inside that might be stagnant in you or weighing you down, making you feel anxious or depressed or what’s stuck inside. So, the sounds, the music, really stir things up and bring forward along with the prompts that I asked, and guide you through in terms of feeling like it’s your own death so that it can really bring you to that edge of vulnerability and honesty in yourself.

Candice Wu 2:32

The experiential is about 75 minutes long, and it’s produced and amalgamated by the editor of this podcast, Chris Spiegl, and he does an amazing job of putting together all the sounds in a way that connects right up with what’s happening through the experience. So, this experience is fabulous to do on the new moon, which is coming up soon and is once a month, and it’s also really great as we’re entering in the winter season, letting what needs to release and transform and transmute, do so and create the compost for fertile life coming up. You can find that at CandiceWu.comm/death, and it’s also a great gift for the holiday season for yourself or anyone who is in your life that you feel might benefit from it. All of that money goes to fuel the podcast and it just gets recycled into more creations and more of these podcasts that offer different topics and meditations to you.

Candice Wu 3:36

Hello, everyone. It’s fabulous to have you here. I invite you to just take this moment to feel into yourself, connect and notice how it has to be in your body, notice if your energy feels whole and collected in yourself or it feels like it’s scattered and running around in circles are going amok. Notice if your mind is somewhere else that’s part of your energy and your attention, and notice this without any judgment. It’s just a moment to observe and gather information about what’s happening inside.

Candice Wu 4:26

Thanks for joining me. It’s great to have you here, and before we jump in today, I want to give you a little update about where I am in the world and what has been in the spotlight of my life. I was recently in Grandville, Ohio at Denison University, was Molly Shanahan/Mad Shak Choreography, that dance company, and they have been working on this incredible piece about the movements and the expressions that come alive and are born from a traumatic experience.

Candice Wu 5:00

I’ve been so grateful to be part of that project by being a somatic consultant and bringing all of my embodied knowledge, intuition and expertise to their process, and it’s been incredible. They’re looking at layers of personal trauma, collective trauma, dance culture trauma, and what’s been ingrained in their bodies as a way of being, but also shifting that to witnessing what’s there and loving what’s there, and letting the movements come from a very deep place of their experience of humanity.

Candice Wu 5:37

So, they had a soft premiere in Chicago two weeks ago, and last week had their first weekend of shows at Denison university with talkbacks afterward, and it was just so incredible to see them working with how their bodies are moving and honoring their bodies rather than overriding and pushing through. We’ve talked all about overwhelm and how to support themselves in that process, resourcing and how to be supported by each other and look at something pleasurable when their body feels overwhelmed. It’s been wonderful. And so, shout out to them and deep-felt gratitude. Hopefully, I get them on the podcast one day, talking about their amazing artistic process and their research in this project.

Candice Wu 6:28

So, a little fun story, the last night I was there, I stayed in the Buxton Inn the whole weekend, which was fabulous, and I had read that there was a ghost in one of the rooms and there was a ghost, the ghost of the historical Inn that the owner of it, the founder, rather, who just overlooks the place, and sometimes there are occurrences in Room 9, and on the third night, of my visit there, I had to switch rooms because they didn’t have the same room for three nights. So, when I asked what room it was, they said Room 10, and I was like, few! I’m so glad it wasn’t room nine. I just didn’t really want to deal with that I was a little bit nervous about it, and then we got to Room 10 and it was gorgeous and adorable.

Candice Wu 7:22

And then the person, the receptionist said that it can get pretty noisy because it’s right above the staircase and the reception desk and the restaurant, and I said, “Is there another option?” And what was the other option? Yes, it was room nine. So, I decided to go for it, and I was still kind of nervous about it. I have never really been scared of ghosts. I don’t see ghosts or spirits in a very visual way, and yet, I have many friends that do and I just always thought, “Well, I don’t know if I want to see all of that.” And I had such an interesting experience. I decided to just talk with that spirit when I got to the room and just let them know that I was at peace with him, and I believe it was a he, and that’s what one of the founders is a he. And so, it felt like yeah, we’re at peace.

Candice Wu 8:29

And then, I was actually reminded by Chris Spiegl, the editor of this podcast and my former partner that I traveled with that, “Yeah, I was with the ancestors of this in this historical Inn,” and that just clicked to me in that moment. “Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I work with spirits all the time.” I work with ancestors all the time, with family constellations and my own ancestors, ancestors of other people and spirits, past selves, spirits from all sorts of dimensions. I don’t know why it just didn’t click to me that this was actually really familiar territory until that moment. And so, then, it just felt like, “Oh, okay, we’re fine here.” This is not new territory for me, and I know how to navigate this. And in fact, when I see things that might be scary to people through the ancestral work, through family constellations, it has never truly scared me.

Candice Wu 9:39

So, I go to sleep and I have the best sleep ever, and in the morning, I half woke up and I had sleep paralysis, briefly what seemed brief, and I’ve only had that a couple of times in my life. It doesn’t really scare me. It just is a really strange feeling, but here this time, I felt certain that there was a spirit that was like on the right side of my body. And in my half-waking state, I said in my mind, “No, get off of me. I don’t want you on top of me.” And he did, and I felt released some energetic grip, and then I could move again a few moments after.

Candice Wu 10:24

So, I did have an incident or occurrence or interaction, and it was fine. It didn’t really scare me. I just, it was interesting. I had boundaries while I was asleep. So, I was appreciating myself for that. So, whether or not that was actually the spirit or ancestor of this hotel this in, I don’t know, that’s just what it felt like, and that’s my account of the experience at the moment. So, before all this, before I went to sleep, I actually asked my pendulum whether there was a ghost in the room and it said, “No,” and then I asked, Is there a spirit in this room, and it said, “Yes.”

Candice Wu 11:05

So, in that moment, I got the message that maybe we shouldn’t be calling these ancestors of somebody, ghosts, and yes, they may be hanging around to finish something, but aren’t so many other spirits and energies here, too, if you believe in that. So, that’s my two cents on the topic of ghosts and spirits, today. Maybe you have more experiences or this enlivens some memory of something for you, I’d be happy to hear what your experiences, you can always reach out to me and share.

Candice Wu 11:44

One more thing I want to touch base on is that I had the most amazing astrology reading by Elena Sakopoulos. She’s the founder of hidden gift astrology, and you can find her on Instagram @hiddengiftastrology. I don’t get any money for saying this, I just really like her work, and she’s a friend of mine, and I spoke with her today after feeling very, very, very, very confused and kind of all over the place with some decisions and things that are going on in my life, relationships and all sorts of things, and I just got so much clarity and in fact, that chaos, that chaos I was describing was part of my chart with Uranus in a specific location.

Candice Wu 12:30

So, it’s really great because I felt way validated in my desires right now, my striving for certain kind of freedom in myself, the eccentric way that I’m setting up my relationships and structuring my boundaries, and defining what works for me. All of that was really reflected in my reading today, where she looked at the arc of some of the planets, transitions of the planets and what might be coming up for me. She has a holiday sale. So, it’s totally worth it and a gift certificate sale, so, you might check that out if you’re interested. I just got one for my mom.

Candice Wu 13:12

Alright, so, let’s jump into this episode. Last week we talked about taking versus receiving specifically about taking and that taking comes before giving, and it is, this very developmental process that is necessary and becomes an essential way of our assertive right in our lives. So, if you’re interested in learning more about that, check out the episode at CandiceWu.com/taking, which is part one of the series of three. Today’s on receiving and next week is on giving, and that leads us up to the United States Thanksgiving holiday.

Candice Wu 13:56

My initial reason for wanting to talk about this is that sometimes people feel like they’re not allowed to take, that they can’t take what they need even, and it just feels so painful because I know to myself this experience of not being able to reach out and take what I need, and that I deserve that and I’m worthy of it, and I’m not talking about stealing or taking what’s not mine or more than what I need, but just what I need, and what I desire. So, that episode goes way deeper into that developmental necessity where that can take us in terms of how we assert ourselves, and what we feel we’re able to take on in our life if we’re even able to take up space, take our time, all sorts of ways that taking is important.

Candice Wu 14:47

So, here we are today with receiving. What is receiving? Receiving can be allowing something to come to and agreeing to it, allowing yourself to take it, absorb it in, hold it, be with it, have it, and when we think about receiving, we often think about what we’re attracting to and what we contain in our being that comes our way, what we absorb in. The biggest thing I have to say about receiving is that it is all in the body. It is all about how the body, the cells of our body, the muscles, the tone of our tissues, what it does when something comes our way. It’s all in our capacity to feel that we’re worthy of receiving and that we are allowed to, and our capacity to feel all of our feelings.

Candice Wu 15:55

If we are blocking certain feelings, if we think that they’re bad that we have them, and this happens in subtle ways, like, we think we should feel better instead of just feeling what we feel where we want to do something about it to cope with it, certainly there’s a place for that, because there are times where we really need to just do something about it so we can do something else. And it’s my hope that you come back to those feelings because those feelings are real treasures, which give the pathway to allow you to receive what you want to receive because if those feelings are there, that might be sensation or emotion in your body, that’s energy, and it’s taking up space, and it might have a certain kind of direction or quality to how it takes up space in your being and your energy field, and in your body, and it can block other things that you do want to receive more of from coming in.

Candice Wu 17:05

Sure, it can also block more negative things from coming in, which is probably a way that of survival if that is your way, that may be a whole other conversation, but if we build our capacity to be with what’s present in our bodies, what feelings we have, thoughts, emotions, sensation with a witness, with the feeling that our body can hold it and not overriding, where when we feel like our body is not big enough that we just plow through where we develop that capacity over time, then that is the direction towards receiving what you wish and to be able to consciously create and attract, and allow what it is that you can’t consciously want, not what is unconscious. There’s all sorts of stuff coming our way that is unconscious, that we’re not aware of, that our bodies and energies are conditioned to, and we’ll talk about all that today.

Candice Wu 18:18

So, the capacity to feel all of our emotions is part of a receptive mode of our body, a state of being that is our appear state of being, that has access to all the modes of communicating from and with our bodies and energies, that these emotions are tools, part of our toolkit, and when that’s blocked, it’s blocking our receptivity, and when it’s flowing and open, more is able to flow towards us.

Candice Wu 18:50

There are certainly times to block our energies and to close in and not receive more especially if you’re feeling overstimulated. So, there’s not a good and bad of any of this, really, it’s just where you’re at, what’s the next thing for you, where do you want to develop your capacity or what’s needed in this time and place for you in your life and on your journey, now.

Candice Wu 19:18

Abraham Hicks talks about receptive mode, and I’ve often enjoyed some of her talks, although, she does not seem to give away towards building that capacity for receptive mode, at least not in the talks that I’ve listened to, and it’s not quite trauma-sensitive, where if you have had experiences that have traumatized you, that have been overwhelming to you or your lineage, which I don’t know anyone that doesn’t have something, she doesn’t quite give away towards building that receptivity rather than saying just do it, and for some people that really works, and for some people, it doesn’t. So, it may take some healing process over time, it may take that building of capacity over time, learning about your body and building a relationship, which is all about what this podcast is about, to build your receptivity.

Candice Wu 20:26

When I think about our state of being, and being in a receptive state of being, receptive towards what we desire, so much goes into that. One piece is that on a human physical level, we come into this life through our parents, and we come into this life into an energetic field of the soul of this family system that is the biological family, and this is really important because that gives not just like our gut flora or our DNA, but that DNA is intricately one with the experiences and the amount of safety that’s in the system based on how much they’re able to integrate the experiences and celebrate the good things and look at the really hard and tragic things, and what’s leftover.

Candice Wu 21:31

Sometimes experiences are so traumatizing and tragic that the people that experienced them weren’t able to actually look where it wasn’t safe afterward, and those energies of emotions and experience get passed down and connected with later people in the ancestry which we are part of. So, it’s not a bad thing. It’s just indicating to us where there is the next step of healing or looking that brings us back to our wholeness, our natural, safe state of being.

Candice Wu 22:15

Whatever system we came into, when we were an infant, even in utero, there’s a level of felt sense, safety or unsafety, some spectrum of that, based on all of the collective experience of the family system, and what’s happening in the collective consciousness at that time as well and in the culture, and then we get to a very personal level of the parents that we have and what they’re holding in their bodies and nervous systems, how their nervous systems are, what level of safety their nervous systems feel, which give how much capacity they’re able to attune and mirror and bring safety to their child. What level of coherence and the ability to hold their own experience as well as their babies? So, that brings us to the question of, what was it like when you entered into this life? What’s your impression? Where’s that held in your body? And what did you receive?

Candice Wu 23:27

Literally, what did you receive, not just in good stuff, and things you needed. If you got some of that, you must have gotten at least some of it to survive to this point, if not a lot in your life, but what did you receive that might have been unpleasant or unwanted or uncomfortable that may have felt like you had to receive that or else you wouldn’t survive or it was just a tidal wave coming at you and your life. So, all of those experiences early on can tie into what messages we receive about ourselves and as well as messages we came in with, maybe from a past life or from another dimension of experience, from other experiences before this life, if you believe in that, which I do.

Candice Wu 24:24

So, our early ways of experiencing the world, the world around us, this nature versus nurture conversation, I believe it works in collaboration, that if our nurturance, by those that we were born from was attuned enough than it needed to nurture our nature, specifically to what kind of being we were, and yet there are all sorts of factors that come into play beyond this that we cannot say that it’s only pointing to our early experience, in my opinion. So, as we bring this to the conversation about receiving, what comes to mind and heart for you when you bring up the topic of receiving? What do you feel with that idea and concept? And where do you feel it in your body?

Candice Wu 25:28

I was a container for all sorts of unwanted emotions, for example, shame, fear, and anger of others in my ancestry, and then later, I also found past lives or lives of other dimensions where I wasn’t able to feel the heartbreaking grief and loss of some experiences until now… because it wasn’t safe. And if this topic is in interesting to you about the ancestry, you can check out the family constellations episode at CandiceWu.com/ep5 or go to the other podcasts where, with guests and with myself, we related to this topic at CandiceWu.com/familyconstellations where you’ll find all those listed, and if you’re interested in in the past life stuff, you can just go to my podcast CandiceWu.com/podcast and search past lives and you’ll find all those episodes that connect.

Candice Wu 26:37

So, we can be receiving all sorts of things, we can receive, “good things,” pleasurable things desirable, money, abundance, we can receive unwanted things, things that are painful, undesirable experiences that repeat themselves. We may be receiving energy that is not ours, energy we don’t want to contain in our body. We may receive vibrations or energies from someone that feels supportive or lifts us up, prayer maybe pleasure or joy, money, and abundance, resource, opportunities, possibilities, gifts, compliments, touch or hugs, contact. Receiving also involves being seen and receiving someone seeing you, receiving support and being held, receiving food, receiving love. Sometimes, where love might be tangled with other things that we don’t want, like when paired with obligation or pain.

Candice Wu 28:03

If you want to look into this more deeply, there are two podcast episodes and that’s at CandiceWu.com/love and also /lovepart2. We can receive respect and healthy admiration, sensuality, sexual pleasure, simple pleasures of looking at things and receiving the beauty, human enjoyment, receiving flavors and smells, sounds, ecstatic experiences. So, as we make this list up, see what else comes up for you about what can be received, but here, now, as we bring up a more reflective space of receiving and how you experience it. I want to ask several questions that may stir up what it is been like for you in your world and perhaps what will be the next step in your capacity to receive.

Candice Wu 29:29

So, with the topic of receiving, what are you receiving in your life? And I’m not just talking about the pleasant or good things, “good, good things.” I’m talking about what is arriving in your space and that you’re accepting in or taking in. Some of this might be unpleasant or unwanted or undesirable, and some of it may be joyful or pleasant, what are you receiving? If you need more time to reflect on these questions, I invite you to pause the podcast, and then just continue on when you’re ready, and this may be a great place to journal if you’re interested. So, feel free to pause and grab a journal or a cup of tea and come back to it or just meditate with me and see what comes up here.

Candice Wu 30:44

So, just to give a little bit of the opposite experience I named that I was a container for unwanted emotions and other painful things that came through the ancestry, and that created some imprint for how I would interact with the entire world, and yet, I’ve also been over time as I’ve healed so much of my trauma and difficult experiences, I’ve been able to receive so much good, so much pleasure, peace of mind, peace, time, being with people and receiving a lot of love, interaction, and intimacy. I’ve received so many opportunities to connect with people that are feeling really aligned with me and stimulate my own creativity. I’ve received a lot of support from people that support this podcast as well as my life and my world, my creative endeavors, who I am as a person, and I’ve also learned to receive from myself.

Candice Wu 32:01

So, there will be another reflective experience later in this episode as well as some self-forgiveness that will offer to support some clearing of belief sets and things that come up around receiving, but before we go there, I want to talk about what causes a blockage of receiving. We kind of touched on it already, but if you’ve had experiences where you’ve had to protect yourself, energetically or physically, and you may not have been able to do something that you needed to do to protect yourself that may be an experience of trauma, and in some way, the body does it differently and finds a way to survive it, and so, that might be tension in your body, in your tissues or muscles and that can create you know, you’ve heard the sense of there’s a wall between us where it’s like talking to a brick wall where they’re so cold, or I feel so distant.

Candice Wu 33:08

So, whether it’s a physical boundary or not, there’s a way our body creates an energetic and then physical experience that can block us from receiving the things that we really want and need to receive. It’s a way of shutting down the frozen state tonic immobility of playing dead that the body needs to do to protect due to overwhelm, and if that sounds somewhat familiar to you or you feel numb quite a bit or you can’t receive, you might check out the Nervous System Overwhelm Episode at CandiceWu.com/overwhelm, which will give more details about that experience.

Candice Wu 33:52

If you’re receiving too much of something that’s unpleasant, you might look at what your spirit is trying to draw you to, because this may be the next spiritual lesson or the spiritual lesson of your life, but this is where the energy is, this is where your receptivity is on the other side of this experience. So, it’s guiding you to get through it, to move through it, to build the capacity there, to feel through that and know that possibility of a human experience so that you’re going to arrive back at a natural state of safety, flow, and coherence.

Candice Wu 34:36

This also might relate to a disruption in early life around merging with your mother. In utero and as infants we have this experience of merging with mother, with the energy of mother where we’re not separate, where we’re physically not separate and then when we come out with even, there’s an experience of needing to be with to survive, and we need the regulated nervous system of our mother to feel safe enough to develop our own nervous systems and capacity to then, at some point, begin to separate and learn that we are a separate body that can handle with this nervous system that’s building and with mothers still present, that we can be safe in the world, and that’s why we need to be within 36 inches of the heart’s space of our mothers.

Candice Wu 35:39

I think that the HeartMath Institute does research on that, but if there’s some disruption around merging like it doesn’t feel safe or mother had to give up the baby and you were adopted or the mother got sick or depressed or something that happened, another baby came too soon for this infant, then that can feel to an adult person that had this experience that hasn’t yet healed from that or healed around that, that you can receive too many other energies and emotions from the outer world because there’s still a need to merge with something safe.

Candice Wu 36:27

A lot of empaths feel that way, that they can be flooded with emotions that they don’t know whose they are and it can feel very unsettling to be in a group. I certainly was that way for a long time, and as I developed my nervous system capacity and sense of self, it’s easy to have a boundary and not take in other emotions, but there are times where sometimes, there’s a space in my energetic boundary that take something in and it relates to some receptivity in myself or some similar experience that my body and spirit wants me to look at.

Candice Wu 37:11

Feeling blocked in receiving can relate to the belief sets that we’ve internalized over lifetimes, ancestry in this life, both conscious and unconscious, and the ones that are unconscious are the ones that usually live and control more of our thoughts and behaviors, our experience in life. I think also because most of the time, they’re undesirable or we have some resistance against it, but this is showing us again, something that wants to be seen, felt through and bringing us to a larger capacity.

Candice Wu 37:55

This brings me to another experience of ancestry and our interconnectedness with all people and creatures is that we have, deep in us that interconnectedness, and what I see and believe as this love, that we do love all creatures and beings, earth as well as an animated living being, breathing, breathing being, and that when we see that others are not receiving something or having something or if they’re in pain or they’re in an excruciating experience, that we might decide somewhere in us that we can’t have it either or we can’t have more or we can’t be in pleasure or peace because other people aren’t or certain animals are not, and then we choose to suffer as well.

Candice Wu 38:59

That’s one way looking at it. It could be someone who died in our family ancestry or in a past life or in another dimension or in this life, especially if they died young like a baby or stillborn child, in utero, a younger adult or if someone died by suicide, there is this deep love that binds us that wants them to be okay, and we want to do it with them sometimes or want to feel that they’re not having to do it alone or their survivor’s guilt, like, why did I live and they didn’t? Sometimes, we have in our perception that others don’t have as much or receive as much or they’re not as happy or they’re suffering, and then we also choose to suffer. This is all tied into the family constellations, conversations, and I could go on a lot longer about it, but for today, I’ll just leave it at that. I’ll connect this with a story that I have of eating shrimp and crab legs.

Candice Wu 40:07

One day, I was having a special romantic night with someone, and we had just bought crab legs from the store and made them. And this is a while back when I was really working on my worth and what I could receive, and as I was eating them, I started crying and the thought was, should I be able to have this when I know my grandparents don’t? And there was this feeling in my body of like, I shouldn’t have this, I’m not allowed to, how could I? And it was like betrayal and disloyalty to them. So, there’s a way in which we might be loyal in order to love those that we love. We might be loyal to suffering or not having as much or not allowing ourselves to receive, and it feels like a betrayal to receive more or it feels like we’re going to be betrayed if we receive more, like, we’ll be called selfish or we will be ungrateful or other beliefs that may come up.

Candice Wu 41:17

I wrote a blog post on the invisible bonds of love, money, and abundance in our ability to receive that, and I talked about how my grandpa was sold for money and how I was so holding that experience of loss, of disconnection in the family line that also related to money, and that really affected how it came down the line as to what I thought I could receive, and if I even felt enough in myself. You can read that blog post at CandiceWu.com/invisiblebonds, and with all these links, I’ll link them to the show notes as well.

Candice Wu 42:02

I’ll touch briefly on two other things because this is becoming quite a long episode, is the ability to say, “No.” If we’re not able to say no or have boundaries, that can sometimes cause us to not be able to receive what we want because we’re just receiving everything then or we are taking on everything or all the things that just come our way, and by selecting what we say yes to and say no to, it’s really important, because it gives the energetic space for what you want and tells the other things, “No.”

Candice Wu 42:38

The second thing is expectations. When we want something so much that the intensity of that desire actually means or shows that there’s the opposite fear attached, like, fear we won’t have it or what if we don’t have it? Then that is actually fear coming through. It’s not a state of being of abundance and receptivity, it is fear playing itself out by wanting, by expecting things to be a certain way that is attachment, because fear creates that tie to attachment, but all that can show you where the fear lies, and looking and feeling that fear is honoring and deepening your capacity, so, it’s showing you the next chapter or program of your school of life and where the energy is blocked, and on the other side, without the push or force of expecting it to be there is usually more.

Candice Wu 43:43

So, just a little shift in gears is that I believe that we all have the right to receive and we have a share that’s ours, that if we’re in alignment with who we truly are, there’s all sorts of abundance that is specifically going to reflect you because you’re worthy and you’re here. The juice of your essence is connected with the infinite world of possibility and that gives you the space to create anything and to be in the flow of the possibility that you are because you are that conscious energy that makes all things. So, that can get a little heady but wanted to say that before we jump into looking at some belief sets because belief sets really get down to the core of what and how much you’re able to receive and the beliefs connect up with a whole set of feelings, emotions, energies, and images in your being that create this way, one way of being.

Candice Wu 44:56

So, looking at beliefs, this is the second part of this podcast, of reflection. Take a moment and just feel a couple of breaths move through your body, and we’ll look at some beliefs and feel free to write down some that come to you or that resonate with you as I say them. What do you feel the permission to receive? What do you feel you’re allowed to receive? And that’s different from what you think you’re allowed to receive. What you feel you can and are allowed, and are permitted to receive? Are you allowed to receive love, belonging, a sense of home gifts, compliments, money, expansion, what are you allowed to receive?

Candice Wu 46:04

Complete the sentence: To receive love would mean ____ or in order to receive love, I need to _____. And this is just ruffling up the belief sets that are here, not necessarily cleansing them out yet or shifting them to what you truly want, just what’s here, and just to adjust that one: to receive, fill in the blank here would mean to and fill in the blank here. So, for example: to receive money would mean to betray my parents or would mean to bend over backward, that’s just an example, and fill in the blank here: to receive a compliment would mean to be ____, some options are selfish, full of yourself ungrateful, disrespectful or maybe you’re at the place where it feels good to be grateful, thankful.

Candice Wu 47:30

What are the rules around what you’re allowed to receive and what you’re not or what amount you’re able to receive? What opportunities come to you and what opportunities do not? When you see other people experiencing things, when are the moments that you feel like, “Oh, I could never have that or that wouldn’t ever happen for me?” Is there a limit to what you feel you deserve? And where are other beliefs connected with your ability to receive or what you can receive or what you do receive? Your worthiness, being good enough or being enough, being a good person or being valuable, lovable, to have beliefs like I’m not allowed to receive because I’m a bad person or a failure or I’m not allowed to receive until I x y&z, and there’s a way you hold yourself hostage, and fill in the blank: If I receive ____ then others will think ______ and just see what there is here for you.

Candice Wu 49:21

And as we close this section of belief sets for now or a million other beliefs that’s I could come up here, which I invite you to explore. I just leave you with the forgiveness statement that my healer Charmayne Kilcup uses with me all the time and I use with my clients is: I forgive myself, for judging myself for believing and then fill in the blank for yourself or I forgive myself for judging myself for having to experience, and then as you turn these around into what you like to believe, and are consciously moving towards, not as an affirmation, but as a way to help clear judgments that and energies that connect with the opposite, use the statement if you’d like: I forgive myself for judging myself for forgetting and add in anything that fits their like, for forgetting that it is safe to receive now or I am worthy of receiving. I deserve what I need. I’m allowed to receive pleasure. I’m allowed to receive gifts and compliments without being judged, and really ask yourself, “Is it safe to receive?”

Candice Wu 51:01

In some settings, it’s not or there’s a feeling that receiving something will threaten something else. It may be important to name those things and see if they’re true, now. Certainly, if you’re in a situation where your life is being threatened or you’re being abused and it’s not safe, I invite you to get extra support and recognize that is not safe. So, I’d like to end here with just a few comments about when you do receive the thing that you’re wanting to receive or something else that just beautifully comes your way. Check to see how you receive it. Do you say thank you, and have an open heart to receive it?

Candice Wu 51:56

Have you ever set a compliment to someone and they said, “Oh no, that’s, you know, it’s all you or it’s Oh no, that’s not really me or something.” It almost feels like a rejection, right? It is a rejection. It’s like handing someone a gift and they don’t take it. So, are you doing that to opportunities or love that’s coming your way to support and certainly you can say no, but do you say no in instances where you actually want to say yes? You might open to the unexpected and say, “Thank you.”

Candice Wu 52:38

Ken Honda was on the podcast recently talking about money, and he is Japanese and looks at our relationship with money, and he loves to say, “Arigato in, Arigato out.” So, when you receive and when you give, there’s a thanks. So, when we receive something, just like in the beginning when I said it’s all in the body, in our feeling sense or openness or contraction, when you receive, how is your body speaking? What’s happening? Is there a way you can soften and allow it to come in, and say thank you and feel into that thank you? Or do you need to say no and block it and say, “That’s not what I want?” And what are you saying in different instances?

Candice Wu 53:36

Attuning to receiving and pleasure and what you desire is a practice. It is you’re right, but it is a practice, because we’re often receiving so much other stuff that we’re conditioned to that, we’re programmed for that or we are accustomed to it, and our bodies need practice to feel the things that you do want to have. So, take time in the peaceful moment. Take time in the beauty of receiving an opportunity and revel in it or when someone sees you, savor it. If you’d like to develop these capacities further and attuned to pleasure further, I have a bunch of different resources for you, and I’ll link these on the show notes.

Candice Wu 54:31

So, I’ll just mention these now, and feel free to jump on to the website and just click on these or write these down or find them as you hear them. Where you can find this specific podcast is that CandiceWu.com/receiving, and there is an experiential called Embodying Your Desires in Love: Receiving and Taking. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/ep65.

Candice Wu 55:05

Also, Ancestral Order — Clearing up Responsibility and Receiving the Best. This is a Family Constellations experiential, and it’s Episode 30c, so, you can find it at CandiceWu.com/ep30. And then, I have a couple of blog posts on pleasure and attuning to pleasure, you can search through my blog post and just click on pleasure and find a lot more but this specific one is at CandiceWu.com/pleasure, and it’s three ways to attune to pleasure.

Candice Wu 55:44

So, I’m wishing you all the capacity to receive because as you receive, others have more permission to receive and as you receive, you fall into the right, the alignment of who you are, to receive all that is here for you to receive, to experience everything you want to, and that opens up more. So, thank you for receiving, and I invite you to look at your boundaries around receiving and continue to practice. Be gentle with yourself when you hit those bumps in the road that feel like you’re not receiving because those are the bumps that lead you towards the smooth, open road.

Candice Wu 56:36

Thank you so much for joining me today, and listening all the way through to this podcast. I am so grateful for you being here, and if you would like to give something to the podcast and allow me to receive it, I would gladly receive it with open arms and an open heart. You can find my support page at CandiceWucom/support, and there are just a bunch of ways where you can contribute to the podcast, and also receive something in return if you’re interested, for example, the personal meditations, the Ally with Death Experiential that I mentioned earlier, the Embodied Healing Group or if you just want to give a donation without any of that, I will gladly receive that, because it does support and nurture this podcast and keep it going.

Candice Wu 57:25

Also, feel free to sign up for my newsletter that comes out once or twice a month at CandiceWu.com/embody. Let’s leave with a little bit of music here as you let your ears receive some pleasant sound, hopefully it’s pleasant for you or feel free to shut it off if you say, “No,” but thank you, again and wishing you all a lovely experience today, of life.