Ritual and Embodiment — EP55

Candice Wu 0:00
This episode is about ritual, the practices that we do in our lives that make us feel connected, beautiful, whole, and free. And when is ritual at its best. I talked about some of the rituals that I have, as well as those that come from my ancestry and invite you to do the same.

Candice Wu 0:23
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 0:37
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 0:59
Speaking of ritual, one of my most favorite and deepest rituals that has stayed with me, across time, in and out sometimes, but always comes back is working with my dreams, have been fascinated with my dreams from the first time that I remember dreams. And it's actually two significant dreams that I had last year that brought me to the feeling of freedom and inspired me to take my first step into a location independent lifestyle. It was these dreams that brought an image of Chiang Mai, Thailand, and invited me to really indulge in the idea of traveling, and Chiang Mai being the first place that call to me. So, as I explored these dreams, it was clearer and clearer to me that I needed to travel and that Thailand was actually the place to begin.

Candice Wu 2:05
It was such a profound and unspeakable experience, when I rode a little one gear bike across this bridge in Chiang Mai, and looked at this river, and saw this image that was practically exactly the same as in my dream. It was so validating and confirming to me that I was following the call with my spirit was following what was true to me. And so, with that, I met an amazing travel partner and traveled the world for this last year with him, created this podcast, released more beliefs that were limiting to me, and found even more freedom in myself this year has been about freedom, all starting from the desire that was shown to me within myself, through my dream world.

Candice Wu 3:09
All this, to say that dreaming is one of the passions that I have. I love working with dreams with my clients because every time we touch in and go deeper, it just opens up this depth of something we already know about ourselves, that was waiting to be fully embraced. So, I'm so excited to share with you these classes, their video classes on dream work and the first one is on Skillshare. It's a platform where you can access all sorts of tutorials, video courses, and classes on any topic. And so, this first class is about awakening your dream life, creating intentions around dreaming, and how to remember your dreams in the best way, the key to remembering your dreams, which is the embodiment piece. So, check it out. If you're interested at 35-minutes long. You can access it at CandiceWu.com/dreamclass1, the number one. And with that link, you can also sign up for Skillshare for free to access this free class, it's free until the end of January 2019. And there's also an offer to sign up for Skillshare for two months for free for the premium membership if you check out that link. Again, it's CandiceWu.com/dreamclass1.

Candice Wu 4:40
Hello, everyone, Happy New Year! By the time you're listening to this, it's already a couple of weeks into the new year. And I'm just wishing you all that you're having the clarity and support for yourself that you'd like for this year. This episode is about ritual. And it's just such a lovely time to think about ritual and bring that into your life if you don't already. And chances are you actually do have many rituals that you're doing day to day, depending on how much meaning you place to them, or attention you place to them. Rituals can be so nourishing.

Candice Wu 5:23
Before we jump into it, let's just start today with a little ritual of tuning in together, letting yourself have this time to listen in and nourish your soul or your spirit or your inner being. And take this time to just let go of whatever the rest of your day includes just the space and time for you. And in connection with me here, I invite you to just sense into yourself and notice how you're doing. And invite yourself to a space of softening in, softening around your edges or where you're holding tension and leaning into gentleness, kindness, and a sense of being that just allows you to be without changing anything, without doing anything, without any pressures on yourself, just to be here and now.

Candice Wu 6:39
Right now, as I'm recording this, I'm still in Germany. And I'll be very shortly shifting over to Ireland where I'm going to be taking care of four horses for a woman who's a nurse. And that taking care of will be quite a ritual because I'll be cleaning up horse poop every day, and feeding, and bringing them back to their stable at the end of the night. And so, this is a daily thing that I'll be incorporating into my life. And I'm really curious how it's going to impact me just doing what's at hand, being in my body, tending to the horses and collaborating with them. And inviting myself to be as present as I can be to the experience of that. I'll also be learning natural horsemanship, which I'm super excited about and somehow feels like it's in my soul to know how to deal with horses, yet, hasn't quite been unlocked in this life yet. So, I'm going to be on that journey and thinking about how I can also incorporate more ritual that can invite my spirit to be alive and present each day.

Candice Wu 8:12
So, what do you think about when you think about the word or the activity of ritual? It's been a question for me ever since one of our listeners has sent me this question, which I absolutely love. If you're out there listening, thank you so much for this question and idea. And the question is, I've been pondering the role of ritual in embodiment, is it the thing that kept cultures in the past embodied? Or is it our lack of it, especially in the US, that's causing us partially to be not so embodied?

Candice Wu 8:51
I love receiving questions like this because it challenges me to think about different angles of what I've learned and who I am, what I see. And I invite you all to do that because it's not that I'm the expert, or this person asking the question is the expert we are each our own experts of what our experience is. And with a ritual that's a very unique and personal kind of experience.

Candice Wu 9:22
I think the biggest question that I have for myself and for you is, what rituals do you have right now? What are they doing for you? and what rituals would bring you in deeper connection and wholeness, peace and love for yourself? If that's what you're looking for, or what rituals can bring you towards that which you desire in your life?

Candice Wu 9:50
As I think about the rituals that I have, there are some that bring me embodiment and some that bring me distraction when I need it. And some that just kept me mindless, as well as some that feel really precious to who I am, and allow me to soften into a space of love.

Candice Wu 10:13
So, you might have already guessed some of those rituals, like going on Facebook and Instagram and just scrolling. That can be a very disembodied kind of ritual. We can take any action, any series of actions or gestures, or performances, and make them into a meaningful experience that helps us get in tune with a feeling, with an experience, with a dimension of ourselves, a dimension of the universe. Or we can take that same ritual and be numb with it, let it be a way to avoid connection with ourselves or with others. Anything can be used in any way. So, the ritual itself isn't necessarily an act of bringing connection and embodiment, it's just where's your attention, and where's your awareness, when you're doing that ritual or activity. Anything can really be a ritual, I think, that's one defining character for a tool is that it's something you do repeatedly, whether that's once a month, once a year, once a day.

Candice Wu 11:29
And it's not exactly characterized by a formality, like that many people are doing this ritual altogether. But it can be a very personal experience. It can be a ritual within you and another person in a relationship, a friendship or a romantic relationship.

Candice Wu 11:52
It can be with your family, something that happens together, or with community, a larger group of people that all acknowledge that this has some meaning, whether that's shared meaning, plus personal meaning, or if it's an agreed upon meaning that happens in a shared space. If we think of ritual through history, through culture, through ancestry, there have been an incredible amount of rituals that have been healing and supportive of embodiment. And so many also that have been traumatic. So, thinking of healing circles, and being in a drum circle, or doing the daily ritual of dream time where you come together and share pieces of dreams, fragments of dreams or stories that you have in your nightlife. And you dream for one another and associate with each other's dreams. That's an experience of ritual that can be incredibly empowering, and bring a lot of life and support embodiments

Candice Wu 13:09
Greetings are ritual, handshaking, or the way that different cultures might greet each other and honor one another when you meet a new person, or when you acknowledge someone that's important, or acknowledge anyone for that matter.

Candice Wu 13:28
Meditation can be a ritual, the act of being still going inward. The different practices that one might do like yoga, movement of the body with awareness, dance, Chi Gong or Reiki and way on the other end our rituals that have been traumatic to the body or traumatic to the spirit.

Candice Wu 13:55
Different rites of passage like circumcision or mutilation of body parts to signify a transition into the next step of life. Perhaps that gives a sense of belonging and movement forward transition, yet it also to the body can be extremely painful, scary, and just our natural instincts of protecting the body and the integrity of the body can turn on and leave a scar can leave a shift in the nervous system that tells us that we're not quite safe, or we weren't at one point. I was looking at different rituals and different cultures that were interesting and different. And if not the experience that makes something dramatic, it's whether the person had a reaction that was incomplete or unresolved around it if it was overwhelming or scary. So, not all of these experiences might be that way.

Candice Wu 14:57
One of the things I found was on Easter Sunday, churches in Tilos, Greece, shoot fireworks at their opposing churches to hit the bell of the other church. And there's also a story of Muslims and western India, in a town of Solapur, they line up their babies off of a 15-meter tower in a shrine and catch them with a white sheet. This ritual is taken place for more than half a millennium, according to BBC, and it's believed to make the children grow up healthy and strong. And the claim is that there haven't been any injuries during this ritual for over 500 years. And what we know about babies nervous systems is that they're not fully developed. They're just beginning and they need the support of loving, attuned and regulated caretakers to support their nervous system to develop so they can self-regulate. And the experience of being dropped 15 meters might be terrifying. We don't know, but it also is a nonverbal experience. So, the babies can't quite tell us if it was scary other than with their emotions if that's something that they feel permission, and safety to do, which is all a very intuitive and sensing experience.

Candice Wu 16:26
If you have the message in a family that crying isn't okay, and you must be strong and not cry, the baby might not cry. So, this is generalizing a lot and assuming a lot, but that is one experience that a baby could have while being dropped 15 meters. Well, this is not my culture and I don't have the proper understanding from within the culture to truly give honoring and meaning to this ritual, I just want to bring light to the idea that some rituals might have a benefit. And some also might have a wounding effect if something is not resolved about it. There are also some other modern types of ritual that we might consider in our idea of virtual like hazing in a fraternity or sorority or grouping, or the running of the bulls in Spain, or other countries, weddings, there are certain ways that we like to mark a transition or commitment, or an experience a celebration.

Candice Wu 17:42
Christmas can be a ritual the way that you celebrate or not. And all this really leads me to the idea of belonging. When we have a community that agrees upon said rituals or unspoken rituals when there's an unconscious agreement or even a conscious one. If we are part of this greater experience, we can feel like we belong here, that we are part of something we're not alone. And this shared experience can be so powerful. But at the same time, shared experiences like that if there isn't the flexibility to be oneself, and to speak and express the truth of oneself and how you feel. It can be extremely stifling, shaming, or a feeling of guilt to step out of the bounds of what is the agreed upon experience, to step out of the sphere of belonging, what makes you belong within a group. And so, if there is pressure to do a ritual, or to believe in something, or to do something that doesn't feel right to you individually, then that pressure can cause a traumatic experience. It can bring shame, it can bring fear, to really be yourself and speak up for what feels right for you and aligned for you. So, I think this happens on very subtle and over levels in society, as well as within our family systems. Just think about what are the things that you feel are right, or interesting for you, that you might fear judgment from a certain group of people, you might fear judgement from your family or fear what they would do, maybe you don't even let yourself have the thought of doing a certain thing, or having a certain experience or believing in something because the people that you grew up with, or the community that you were embedded in, doesn't believe it.

Candice Wu 20:04
We can obviously see that very clearly with experiences of difference of sexual orientation, of gender, identity, all of these can bring up that kind of experience of stepping out of the spirit of belonging. So, where does ritual fall into this? What are the rituals of your family system that you love? And what are the rituals of your family system that don't fit with you and that you'd like to do differently?

Candice Wu 20:41
Some of the most beautiful rituals that I've experienced in my life come from family constellations. That's part of why I love doing that work because it brings an honoring and acknowledgment of what truly is existent, what's the truth. Where someone belongs and fits into the world. And something as simple as a mother, looking at their daughter, and stating that you are my daughter, you are my child, or for one part of the ancestry or a person to acknowledge of another person, exactly who they are and how they are, how they want to be seen, honoring our position and our role, giving us clarity and anchoring us to a sense of belonging, but also giving the freedom to be and do it exactly the way each individual wants to do it to honor one's fate, to honor one's choice and autonomy and freedom. In family constellations, we set up experiences where we can do that kind of honoring and acknowledgment and whether it's with the real people or not, whether it's with strangers or not, we can use the power of that acknowledgment for our inner acknowledgment to strengthen and fortify what we acknowledge within ourselves.

Candice Wu 22:15
Some of the most connecting and important rituals for me have been around loss, death, and grief. How do we honor grief together, and individually? Can we be together in a space where all of our emotions can be seen and integrated, acknowledged, and honored, treasured, even.

Candice Wu 22:40
So, I feel that ritual at its best brings us towards a feeling of being and honoring ourselves, a sacredness, of beauty and of connection. A connection that brings congruency to your inner and outer being, something that you can do that supports you and feeling embodied, feeling the truth of your being, your wholeness, or something that bonds and links humanity together and shared purpose and acknowledgment that may be between you and another person or a small group of people, or with a larger group and community. Ritual is also a celebration and honoring, of something of an experience of a way of being, a celebration of yourself in who you are. And just that you exist, aliveness. It can be mindfulness, just being aware of your presence, and treasuring your breath each moment.

Candice Wu 23:52
I believe that ritual supports belonging and freedom to be oneself at the same time at its best, that it has the space for unique expression, as well as the sense of connection with others and with self. And it can be a very co-creative process, a collaborative process between self or others to find what is unique and special, what has meaning, and what feels just right in the moment, letting it evolve and breathe over time.

Candice Wu 24:26
The power of our attention, where we place our attention is so strong. And the more we dip into something that's important to us, the more fortified it becomes. So, when we design something and allow it to be a ritual in our lives, the more that it happens, the more we choose to, to give it its meaning and to feel its meaning. The more strengthened it is, the more beautiful it can be. But to leave that space where it can transform into a new form matter, a new shape. So, I'm most interested in creating and engaging in rituals, that means something to me, and are nourishing for me, as well as bring me a feeling of honoring myself and some purpose that feels right to me at the time. Rituals can be clearing of the past or healing. Rituals can be identifying and acknowledging. So, why are we doing what we're doing? Why are we doing this ritual? And how are we doing it? – are two important questions.

Candice Wu 25:37
Honoring ritual in this way, honors that each of us are such unique beings that we come into this life with a very specific imprint, an energetic signature, a desire to do what's very meaningful to us to learn the lessons that we want to learn, to experience what we want to experience, and what can support us along the way. What small and simple actions or act? What practices and what acknowledgments can bring us towards that which is our self and reveals our self?

Candice Wu 26:25
So, before you take some time to explore your own rituals if this is of interest to you, I'm happy to share some of the rituals that I have, and that I have had in my past as well.

Candice Wu 26:38
For me, most of the rituals that I have incorporated the body at this point in my life, I love feeling and being in my body, and using actions to support that. It wasn't always this way in my life. I remember early on just learning to journal, and using my mental capacity to reflect on myself was a start. Also, talking to my friends on the phone and exploring themes of my life. That was also part of the beginning. But as it got deeper and deeper into my healing, I felt that the embodied practice, the feeling inward of all of my being was really important. When I began learning Ayurveda, I fell in love with Abhyanga massage. It's a warm oil massage from head to toe touching in on all sorts of karma points, or acupressure points that can stimulate the energetic channels in the body and support feeling in the body, support the body being present, and taking care of. And that was what it was, for me. It was taking care of myself. It was feeling into my body and getting to know each part of my body. Where was I holding tension? How did it feel to massage each part? What allowed something to release and soften in my body. And how did I feel afterward? And just enjoying that. I come back to that ritual from time to time and brings me a feeling of connection and love for myself. And same with having a salt bath with Epson salt or Himalayan salts, just letting my body be in the water, be in warmth, and enjoy it is a really loving thing to do.

Candice Wu 28:33
At some point in my life, around eight years ago, after I'd started doing some deep healing work, I was able to connect with what I was feeling inside and speak it to other people. So, one of the rituals that I had for myself was to sense into that each time I was with someone and to speak honestly about what I felt. And that became just a moment to moment ritual.

Candice Wu 29:01
I enjoy connecting with what I feel and allowing myself to listen, ask myself what I need, and to imagine the healing I need. So, healing rituals are very important for me, just being quiet, tuning in and feeling inward. And then letting whatever process I intuitively need come through.

Candice Wu 29:29
When I have healing sessions with others, like my clients, or couples and relationships, retreats, or group sessions with several people, I open the space with love and open the space of connection with all of our relations that want to give us wisdom, all the parts of us that wants to come through and be honored. And to have an experience of tuning in together like that really brings forward understanding clarity, compassion and gentleness and this feeling of being in touch on a spiritual level. I also like to use my pendulum a lot. That feels like a ritual to me because it feels like I'm getting in connection with a deep knowing in myself. And I can let it be confirmed or disconfirmed with my pendulum. So, if you know that practice, it's using something like a stone or necklace, or an object on the end of string or chain to let the body tell you if it's a yes or a no. Related to applied kinesiology are being our muscles, our whole energetic system either resonates with something or doesn't. And I've loved asking myself questions when I'm making decisions or when I'm just tuning into what I need to do today.

Candice Wu 31:04
There was a time in my life where I was feeling into love and beauty, appreciating myself and the Lotus Mudra was something that gave me that feeling. You can look it up online, and I'll attach it in the show notes as well. The Lotus Mudra, the movement of that was so special and pleasurable. And then that end position of the hands underneath the chin opening up like it's a lotus to your face. It was just such a way to honor my presence and being. So, I spend a lot of time when I wake up and at night before I go to sleep, visualizing and embodying the energy of what I want to cultivate in my life or to be aligned with and just vibrating in that energy as I fall asleep or as a wake-up.

Candice Wu 32:00
And as I speak to this, I also notice that as I've traveled this here, and in the last couple of years, as I've learned how to feel more into the safety of my body and let my nervous system come down and release what it's held for years and years. One ritual that I do is I just notice my surroundings and recognize in my mind and my body that I'm safe. And that allows whatever fears I have to start to shift to trickle down and allow me to become aligned with the present moment.

Candice Wu 32:44
Other simple rituals I have her having tea with myself or my partner, making something warm to drink that feels nourishing to my body. And I imagine as I go to Ireland and work with horses, that I'll have different rituals that I'm bringing forward and using as I'm connecting with horses and building trust, developing the relationship with horses. The first thing I do is just make sure that I feel embodied and check in on how I'm feeling inside. And that greeting with a horse that allowing connection to build. I'm curious what will come of that and what I'd like to create with that as well. And what the horses will tell me about it.

Candice Wu 33:29
One last word to I want to mention today is connecting in with my spirit's song and dance. In the last few years, a lot of emotions have moved through, a lot of healing has happened to close up pieces of all sorts of parts of my life. And some of those have been traumatic, and some of those have been very healing and celebrating. But what's brought me back to this remembrance of who I am and the sacredness of my specific being is tuning into that spirit song or soul song and dance. I just visualize the dance of my soul, the dance of my being, and what sounds or song goes with that. For me, that brings me to an acknowledgment of who I am at the essence because it's so nonverbal. And sometimes I let myself just imagine it and feel into that energy. And other times I let my body move, where I play a song that resembles some part of the feeling that I want to have, the feeling that connects me with my soul song.

Candice Wu 34:49
And if I brought in my ritual set to my ancestry, what comes through now is the rituals around food and what food can mean for different times of the year and what we're honoring During the time of the winter solstice, my mom usually makes dumplings and sticky rice ball soup. I don't know if that's what it's called but that's the best thing I can call it in English. But it's made of lots of vegetables and a meat broth. And we roll up these sticky rice flour balls, they're kind of like dumplings, they're bit chewy. And we make this into a soup and those circular balls. And also other kinds of dumplings that we eat represent wholeness and connection being together.

Candice Wu 35:42
I also love the experience of honoring my ancestors by going to the cemetery with my family and celebrating this person's life, our relationship with this person and bringing all the foods that they loved to them, and offering it to them wherever they are. So, sometimes that's bringing drinks, coffees, teas, and other drinks that they like, bringing different foods that they loved when they were alive, and burning paper money. Sometimes, people go really over the top with it and bring a huge feast. My family and I like to keep it simple, but clear to what the person loved when they were alive. It's really sweet and fun and delicious. So, these are just some of the rituals of my ancestry and myself over the years. And let's take some time, I invite you to notice and get connected with what makes you feel connected, beautiful, whole, peaceful, or still. What makes you feel joy or tune with yourself.

Candice Wu 37:04
Are there activities, rituals, practices, small actions that bring you to feel pleasure and freedom, or to uncover more of yourself? What sounds, actions, smells, experiences make you feel like you're returning home to yourself? And I invite you to just notice throughout this week, throughout this year. What kinds of things bring you to that feeling of yourself and connect with the purpose that you have in each time period of your life? It's really about noticing those things that have meaning to you. And giving them, even more, honoring and presence so that they can, can you to give you life and to nourish you.

Candice Wu 38:06
And remembering that this is all a practice, it's coming back gently when you have forgotten or when you've lost connection with something that means something to you a ritual that means something. I stopped doing Yoga, Yogasana, like practicing poses for a couple of years. And even though I teach it sometimes, I don't always find that I'm connected with it for myself. But in the last few weeks, I've really renewed that connection and it feels so good to just be in my body, feel my muscles stretch, feel what's coming through and the emotions that move with it and to really use it as a tool to release to get in touch with my truth and to be soft, gentle and loving to myself. So, with this new year setting into motion, what rituals you want to have for yourself? Can you just choose one small thing that you give presence and attention to? Is brushing your teeth in the morning with a special toothpaste or oil pulling in the morning a ritual that you can do to support your body to give yourself wellness or to feel healthy? What small thing brings you the pleasure that you can acknowledge in yourself as a ritual?

Candice Wu 39:47
My teacher Jim Kolakowski said that the purpose of life is to give meaning. And that suggests that nothing really has meaning. But what we get to it. And our human existence is offering all the freedom in the world, in the universe to give meaning to the things that we want to give meaning to, and to acknowledge the places where we've given meaning. And those don't align to our present day self anymore. They might be a part of the past, or might be a part of an unconscious part of us. But as we bring things to awareness, what meaning do we want to apply?

Candice Wu 40:32
Totally taking up our freedom of possibility. How can ritual support you in your own freedom? How can it be an expression of your inner possibility, in our authority, and inner knowing?

Candice Wu 40:57
So, in the next few days, I will be offering a few simple rituals that you might incorporate into your daily life. These rituals will be tuning into yourself and asking what you need most right now. I'll also offer a practice of self-massage, choosing a part of the body to support, nourish and get to know a part of the body that maybe is calling or crying for healing.

Candice Wu 41:27
And there may be another one, a surprise one. Let's see what I come up with for the rest of this week. So, feel free to tune in. And also share with me your rituals. What are the little things that you do for yourself? What are the big things you do for yourself? What rituals are you connecting with, with loved ones? What rituals bring you a sense of identity and community?

Candice Wu 41:55
As we close today, I want to offer just a couple of breaths here together, a moment to just integrate any part of this experience, this conversation that sticks with you now that resonates, that you'd like to explore. And I invite you to give a feeling of honoring to yourself, a thankfulness to yourself, gratitude. Just a couple of moments of appreciating yourself for all that you are, for your existence.

Candice Wu 42:57
And as we close today, I want to remind you all of your worthiness, your worthiness to receive the pleasure of the actions you take in your life, the worthiness of choice, the freedom that you have to create what you want in your life. Create the actions and rituals that feel good to you. And that express your inner being, and that field truthful to you. And let's embrace that freedom together. The freedom that we each have, the freedom that allows us to be ourselves that is not connected to any race, any gender, or sexuality. It's the freedom of our human existence.

Candice Wu 43:56
I want to thank you all for tuning in today and for offering up your time and space to receive something from these podcasts. If you're listening in for the first time, I invite you to check out the other podcasts that have been published all year. And all of these are designed to focus on one topic, one specific topic. And each topic might bring some guided healing experiences that you can feel into and practice with me, or meditations that I offer, all to support you in whatever it is that you're moving through on your life journey. Each podcast has a little update of where I am. So, that's more present time. But all the topics are meant to be able to be used at any time. And to be repeated like a ritual if something really resonates for you, for a time or for life, whatever feels right for you.

Candice Wu 44:58
If there are topics that you'd like to hear about on the podcast, feel free to reach out to me at CandiceWu.com and if you want to be informed of the podcasts of self-love notes, updates, as well as the offerings that I have, retreats, the dream class that I mentioned earlier, you can sign up for my newsletter at CandiceWu.com/embody. And be sure to check out the dream class that I mentioned earlier.

Candice Wu 45:27
I love dream work and it is one of the most beautiful rituals that I have for myself to tune into. My dream world has brought me so much – wisdom, life, knowing of myself and love for myself as I explore all the dimensions. Sometimes, dream work can be uncomfortable. It brings forward dark parts of ourselves the shadow aspects, but this is what is life-giving, it's an energy that wants to be reclaimed. And the dream classes that I'm creating on Skillshare are going to dive into that exploration. So, stay tuned for that you can check out the class that I have already. That's for free until the end of January 2019 at CandiceWu.com/dreamclass1, the number one. Thanks so much again, and I'll see you all next time on The Embody Podcast.

Introduction

Welcome to one of the rituals that I want to share with you with this series about creating a ritual that’s meaningful and conscious for you. You can find the full episode introducing this topic at CandiceWu.com/ritual.

Today, we’re going to do a basic ritual, something that you can do in the morning when you wake up or sometime in the middle of the day, just to check-in and it’s to support your heart, gain clarity on what you need to focus on today, and what you most need or desire.

What I find is, the more that you practice this, the more you build that relationship with your inner self, with your intuition and the more answers that you get, the more clarity you do find day-to-day.

Simple Ritual Practice

So, if you’re ready to practice with me, go ahead and find a comfortable place to sit. If you’re in public transit, that’s okay. I do recommend being in a private and quiet space at best, but it’s something that you can do on your way to work or wherever you’re headed, but if you’re driving, I would not recommend doing this now.

Let yourself feel into your body and release the day so far, just letting your attention on any stressors go for now.

Become aware of your breath and where your breath reaches in your body. Notice where your breath does not reach.

Feel whatever your body is sitting on, and imagine allowing your body to be even heavier and more grounded than it is now

Notice where your body can release just a little bit, and also, notice the parts of your body that feel resistant or tight.

Connecting into the Heart

Bring your palms together, palms to touch in front of your chest and the thumbs touching the center of your chest. This lets all of the major energetic channels connect through the hands, especially the heart.

Take this moment now, the sense into your heart. Picture the shape of your heart, and notice any tension around your heart or inside. Feel for any sensations at the heart and acknowledge any emotions that you feel.

If you’d like to continue tuning into your heart, stay here with palms together.

If you feel like your heart needs a hug or you need some compassion, gentleness, kindness or tenderness to yourself, take your hands and clasp them together with fingers together right at the heart, and feel the difference between palms together and the hands clasping here.

And as you breathe, send the feeling of love and gentleness, softening to your entire body, especially your heart.

And you might be with palms together or hands clasping, and there’s a third option, from your hands clasping, move the knuckles out of it to create a sphere with your hands, still holding the hands in somewhat of a clasp position but with a hollow inside between the hands, like a circle.

This position is to release any stress. So, if you feel like you need to release stress, release emotions, allow things to pass through and move on. Go ahead and clasp the hands and bring them to the spherical position of a clasp.

Notice how that feels for you, and feel free to return to palms together, on this clasp being or shifting to this open clasp at any time you want to try something different.

Notice any emotions or sensations that are happening inside, where there’s any holding in your body or release, and as you feel into what’s here in your body, picture what it looks like. It has any color, texture, size or shape, and now come back to palms together with the thumbs touching the chest.

Inner Intuition and Listening

With an open and curious approach, ask yourself: What do I need most right now? Just listen for any responses or images that come to you. What do I most need right now?

Acknowledge anything that you receive from inside or thoughts that flash in, and if nothing shows up, stay curious and open. What do I most need right now?

And now, let’s ask a second question: What do I most need to focus on today? And again, just listening, witnessing inside without any judgment. What do I most need to find focus on today?

And our last question: What do I desire today?

Whatever comes to you, just acknowledge that, even if it’s a whisper or a flash of a thought, those are the ones that usually come from our intuition or something inside rather than the thoughts that are of us thinking and belaboring, and analyzing.

So, as you breathe now and just acknowledge any messages you’ve received about what you need to focus on or what you need today or what you desire today, thank yourself for tuning in and asking, for connecting with yourself and building that loving relationship with yourself, and feel into what you can do for yourself based on these responses, based on the information you have now.

Imagine the possibility of taking action, words, any of the information that you received about what you need, want or what you need to focus on, whether that action is not doing anything at all and taking the space for that or taking another type of action to support yourself.

And as you complete this practice, begin to move your body or stretch the way it wants.

Take some deep breaths, refreshing your body and rejuvenating, and begin to open your eyes if you have them closed, and let yourself move forward with the next step of your day.

Thanks for practicing today, and I’ll leave you with a little music so you can transition. Be sure to check out the other rituals that will be offered this week, and I hope that this helps you begin to create your own rituals.

See you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Introduction

This episode is a healing meditation to bring power and alignment using three of the main chakras.

If you’re feeling scattered, anxious, unsure of yourself, lost, or you just want to feel grounded, centered and embodied, this is a great way to start your day or to help you shift gears.

If you’ve got stress through the day or you’re working, we can use this practice to collect our energy, to feel into the clarity of our voice and who we are, and to feel in our power.

Hello, and welcome. You’re listening to the in 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.

Source Energy

This ritual or practice is something that you can do to help you connect with the source of who you are to be more of yourself to be integrated. This is a practice that I learned from Jim Kulackowski. He is my Yoga and Ayurvedic teacher and he’s deeply spiritual and knows the inner workings of Qigong, Chinese medicine, Yoga Tantra, and integrative Ayurveda and Yoga.

I love this practice because it’s touching into three main chakras and helping us to be so collected in our energy that it creates power inside of us.

When I first started doing this practice, I could not imagine balls of light or energy centers in my body. But with this over time, I was able to see something.

So if that’s you just know that as you practice this, you will experience it differently over time. And it’s a wonderful thing to practice over and over to see what kind of progress is made, what begins to happen and how this might support you in feeling more grounded, and more like yourself.

Let’s Begin

So if you’re ready to join me in this practice, go ahead and find a comfortable place to sit. Feel free to sit in a chair or on the ground and support your hips with something to sit on, if you’re feeling any tension in your hips, legs are back.

If you’re not driving and you’re in transit, this is also something you can do to help you get ready for the day and to be present in yourself.

As you find a comfortable way to sit, feel free to close your eyes or look down if you feel comfortable.

As you bring your attention inward, release your awareness on the outside world. Feel into the power of your own body, your own being just by noticing the outer edges of your body and then bringing your awareness even deeper to the tissues, the muscles, the cells of the body, and even the bone.

Feel the simplicity of your breath going in and out.

And now bring your awareness to your bellybutton. Nabhi chakra, the navel center. This is where your main source of power collects.

Imagine about two inches behind your belly button, that ball of light, the size of a pea begins to form here.

Let this pea-sized ball of light grow brighter and brighter with each breath in and with each breath out.

Let this ball of light grow to the size of a quarter and now the size of a golf ball to the size of an orange, all the way to the size of a grapefruit glowing brightly, boldly and expansive.

If you can’t see that in your mind’s eye, don’t worry this will come with practice. Just imagine you can see this glowing ball of light here.

And now imagine drawing a line of light from this ball up through the center of your body to the center of the chest and let another pea-sized ball of light begin to form. And let this one grow to the size of a quarter, and now to the size of a golf ball.

Connected with the lower chakra. This is the heart chakra.

And see this glowing ball of light about the size of a golf ball, little stronger and sharper than the ball of light below it, but connected.

Now imagine another line coming up from the center of the chest, through the neck, all the way to the soft palate, which is the back of the roof of the mouth. And imagine a ball of light, the size of a pea or a pearl right there at the soft palate, sharp, piercing, and strongly connected with the other two energy centers.

And feel all three centers of energy aligned vertically, noticing the different quality of light in each place. Purple at the top where it’s smaller and piercing, little softer at the heart and even softer but powerful at the belly.

Three Energetic Centers

Imagine that your whole being and physiology is made up of just these three centers of energy.

Picture that your physical body just falls away from this image and that you’re just these three balls of energy connected and aligned.

Continue to picture these three balls of energy aligned as your whole physiology present, brilliant, and clear. Notice the experience of this.

And now allow the ball of light at the top but the soft palate collapse down into the ball of energy at the heart and let that ball of energy at the heart come down to where it began and collapse down into the belly.

And see the ball of light at the belly and let that energy get smaller to the size of an orange and smaller to the size of a golf ball, quarter, and now to the size of a pea or pearl letting it dissolve.

Witness how it feels to be in your body right now.

Notice how your breathing is without any effort and without changing it.

Feel any stillness in your body.

Closing

Stay with this feeling of your inner being while you begin to open your eyes slowly.

Stay connected with this feeling as you move or stretch if you need to, wiggle your fingers, your toes.

Looking around you, become aware of your space.

And as you move to the next thing in your day, feel free to come back to these energy centers anytime to feel your alignment or do the whole practice over again.

End

You’ve just taken about 10 minutes to focus on yourself and align your energy, collect your energy, and to strengthen your energy.

I’m glad you joined me today to do this centering and alignment practice.

If this is something that felt good for you or resonates, feel free to use this in your daily ritual or weekly ritual and you can reuse this recording as many times as you’d like to. Feel free to download it and store it on your computer or your phone for easy access.

You can listen to the full podcast at CandiceWu.com/ritual. There are also other basic rituals that I offer you.

I’ll leave you with just a bit of music here to transition and see you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Introduction

Today, I’ll offer a brief and simple ritual so that you can become more loving and connected with yourself and your body.

This healing experience is part of a greater conversation about creating a ritual. Rituals that feel connecting for you, that are meaningful or support you in a certain kind of energy or feeling that you want to have and to support more love for yourself. You can find the full episode as well as all the other healing experientials and meditations at CandiceWu.com/ritual.

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 meditation and guided healing support, and having co-creative conversations with healers and wellness practitioners from all over the world.

Ritual For Self Love

I know how hard it can be to create a ritual for yourself, one that you actually do. And so I am so happy to offer these sample ritual ideas so that you can practice them, see if they resonate with you, build your own ritual or use these so that you can have a practice that helps you feel in touch with yourself, helps you feel the sacredness of your being.

This one, as I mentioned, is a super simple practice of connecting with a part of the body to give it some energy, attention or love and from embodied practices such as Yoga, Ayurveda, or Somatic Experiencing, and other somatic therapies.

What we know is that when we tune into a part of the body that’s holding some tension or discomfort, that may give way to emotions coming through or different sensations moving through the body. It can also release some thoughts that connect up with the space of tension in your body.

It’s as if your body is holding the energy of some way of being or experience, some belief set that can trigger different emotions and thoughts that are locked into that muscle or tissue in the body, locked into the viscera.

So as you do this practice, I’m here to support you. If you need some one-on-one support, don’t hesitate to reach out, I would be happy to support you.

And use this practice as a way to help you guide through any of the things that come up and feel free to take a break if you feel overwhelmed or if you just want to pause for a moment. It’s a brief practice. So we’ll jump right into it now.

Let’s Begin With Movement

So I invite you to tune into yourself now and give your body some movement. See what kind of movement your body wants.

Does it want to stay still? Does it want to move its shoulders?

How about your toes or your wrists? And just allow this movement to help you tune in with attention towards your body.

And as you come to some stillness, feel free to close your eyes or keep them open or looked down. It’s up to you. And allow yourself to notice any shifts that are already happening right now.

One Part of the Body

I invite you to focus in on one part of the body that really needs support. This may be a part of the body that feels emotion. It may be a part that feels some tension, or discomfort, aching and uncertainty, or an unknown feeling.

Place your hands on that part of the body that’s calling your attention and if you’re not sure what part of the body is calling you, you can place your hands on your belly or your heart.

Be soft and gentle with yourself. Feel free to move to a different place if that’s not the right one.

If your head is feeling dizzy or spacey, numb, you might choose to put your hand on your head. You might choose to place the other hand somewhere else.

See what kind of touch or support your body wants right now?

Stay with one part. One part that’s calling you or the place you found that starts to feel good or soothing as you touch and if nothing’s feeling good, just feel what might feel neutral.

Now just stay with yourself as you feel into this part of the body and you feel your hands to touch.

Notice what it feels like, where your hands are touching.

Without changing the tension or discomfort or feeling that you’re having, witness the feeling.

Allow it to be here. Accept it and embrace whatever feeling is happening.

If it’s a challenging feeling, check-in with yourself to see if it feels tolerable or manageable. Don’t override your system by pushing through.

If it feels unmanageable, just release your attention from there and take a break. If it feels like you can stay with it and manage that, stay with yourself even longer.

Stay with your body. Feel as if you’re giving yourself support just like a loving friend, or nurturing person or companion would.

Notice what begins to happen as you stay with yourself and stay with your body, and track anything that changes inside.

Notice any sounds your body makes.

Notice any place that feels a shift or feels different.

Feel how your breath might be changing or staying the same. Just notice a couple more breaths here.

Notice your whole body now and feel free to release your hands if you feel ready.

Feel your legs, your feet, the core of your body that you have your whole body to experience this with.

Tune into what your body feels like now.

Begin to take a deeper breath.

Movement Again

Let your body move just as we began moving in any way it feels good or right. And if your eyes are closed, feel free to open them when you’re ready.

Take a moment to notice how you feel now at the end of the practice.

Give yourself a moment of gratitude for taking time to yourself, for taking time for your body, for your emotions, for things to shift naturally on the inside, for healing to happen.

And if there are challenging things that came up, feel free to come back to these later. Feel free to reach out as I mentioned, if you’d like support.

If there were pleasurable feelings, invite yourself to connect with them throughout the day, knowing that all of this is expanding your capacity to feel your own experience.

End

And as we end the practice today, I’ll leave you with a little bit of music to transition and to support you in shifting gears and moving forward with the next part of your day.

Thanks for joining me today and see you next time on the Embody Podcast.