Candice Wu 0:01

This episode is with my guest, Susan Lipshutz and she is the everyday medicine woman. Susan reminds us of what’s beyond the minds programming, our innate wisdom, and reawakening the divine feminine. In this conversation, she talks about what informs the universe and what is the Akashic realm. So, learn all about the Akashic realm and Akashic records here in this episode as well as being a rainbow sheep.

Candice Wu 0:32

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

Candice Wu 0:46

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

Candice Wu 1:06

The Ally with Death Experiential is on sale until January 6, 2020. It’s so fitting that in this episode, we talked about cutting the umbilical cords of what’s not sustaining us anymore, that for a time the umbilical cord is needed, and then there’s a time to cut it off. So, what needs to be cut off in your life? What needs to die? What needs to end? When we identify these and work with the energies, emotions, and sensations that are held in our bodies, then we can truly clear and cleanse out what needs to go to make space for a new life, for vitality, rebirthing yourself, and what’s life-giving and present.

Candice Wu 1:51

So, if you want to get clarity for yourself or come back to your intuitive sensing, playful self, check out the Ally with Death Experiential, which is an audio experience that’s guided for you with moody and provocative music by Larry Saint Germain and produced by Chris Spiegl. You can find it at CandiceWu.com/death, you might consider giving it as a gift to yourself or to a loved one. And again the sale is from now until January 6, 2020.

Candice Wu 2:21

We first became interested in the Akashic records when I learned Ayurveda, I was studying Ayurveda and sensed into that as something that was very familiar to me, and over time, I began to develop different gifts and skills in the intuitive or psychic realms, in awareness, and I thought, maybe, it’s time for me to learn that more formally. And so, I worked with Vanessa Rodriguez, who was also a guest on this podcast previously, and she learned from Susan Lipshutz. So, today is such a special day because Susan is here talking to us about the Akashic realm, her 25-year old relationship with the realm and the records, how they can be supportive to us and how the records hold everything, that the collective has ever been through and we are going.

Candice Wu 3:22

I love the way that she brings life and her vibrancy to this conversation, and I have just admired Susan from many different angles, in how she brings people together in the language that she uses that so juicy and provocative, and invoking, and in her way of relating with people. Susan is a licensed clinical social worker and has been a pioneer in the field of integrative psychotherapy, women’s empowerment and soul level mentoring for over 35 years. Her consultations are tailored to the need of the individual, offering a blend of innovative deep therapeutic approaches with an expanded understanding of the greater self via an astrological and spiritual perspective.

Candice Wu 4:15

Susan invites a reclaiming of each woman’s ancestral wisdom, inner guidance and innate understanding of true beauty via a weaving of practices and teachings, inspired by her many years of dedicated work with global wisdom keepers and evolutionary teachings. She’s the founder of Everyday Medicine Woman and offers workshops, meditation courses and retreats as well. So, without further ado, here’s Susan.

Candice Wu 4:53

Okay. Hello, Susan.

Susan Lipshutz 4:56

Hi. Hi. How are you?

Candice Wu 4:58

Wonderful. How are you?

Susan Lipshutz 5:00

I’m Well, thank you. I’m very happy upon our recording right now, mercury has just gone direct, and so, that feels like a wonderful boost.

Candice Wu 5:10

Doesn’t it? It just feels, for me, it feels like some clarity, like things are settling and also like, moving. How is it for you?

Susan Lipshutz 5:20

Well, I think, you know, the experience of this, these, the retrogrades, this year of 2019, have all been in water. So, I think there’s been very much an experience of, because mercury, when it goes retrograde is a process of unwinding, and ultimately, renewal and a lot of what we hope will be clarity or information that can come forward, but because it’s in water, I think it really takes us into more of the unconscious and more of the symbolic and deep in the underground elements of ourself, and then end up having to transcribe those and so, I think with the crescendo having just been in Scorpio, which is very much the elements that we hide from ourselves. It’s quite a deep, rich, mystical and healing journey.

Candice Wu 6:12

Thanks for describing it that way, it really did feel for me like I was in some underbelly of myself…

Susan Lipshutz 6:18

Yes.

Candice Wu 6:19

…then seeing things like oh man, like wow. So, here we are, we’ve emerged out of that and it’s just beautiful to talk to you. I know we’re going to jump into some akashic records today, but before that, I’m just chuckling at technology bumps in the road that we’ve had, and you just mentioned that sometimes when we talk about, when you talk about akashic records that that happens, and I experienced that, too, when there’s a big not just akashic records, but like a big load of energy.

Susan Lipshutz 6:53

That the, that it’s more difficult or interesting to record? Yes.

Candice Wu 6:58

Yes, you Yes, and technology just kind of crashes. Right?

Susan Lipshutz 7:03

Absolutely. Patience is required.

Candice Wu 7:06

So much, right? But Susan, it’s a blessing to have you here. You, I’ve seen you as just anchoring the energy of our ancient wisdom and the divine feminine or mystical essence, bringing in that energy, but grounding it in a way that people can understand and take up in their modern and daily life, and you are the founder of Everyday Medicine Woman. And you also speak about bringing together the wisdom, the ancient wisdom of your grandmother’s, of our grandmothers into our lives. And I wondered, how can we see threads of your own lineage and your grandmother’s in your work, today?

Susan Lipshutz 7:54

Thank you, thank you for focusing a little bit on ancestry and I think For me, it’s been a process, and it’s so interesting that I think sometimes, for all of us, we are so close, and so informed by the dynamics of our family, I know you do so much incredibly beautiful work around helping everyone heal from the impact of some of the experiences that we’ve gone through in our families that have resulted in obstructions and adaptations and some trauma, that it really creates challenge in knowing who we are. And so, I think that’s true with our lineage that for many of us or spirituality that we are so close to the experience and the experience is often informed by the limitation or the struggles or the challenges that our families have gone through, particularly for those of us who are women, who have matriarchal lines that have all been informed by the journey of leaving homeland to come to where we live, which is the United States, although we listen to podcasts all over the world, and then informed by cultures who that have denigrated and suppress the feminine and marginalized.

Susan Lipshutz 9:12

So, I think about the challenge of really opening up to my ancestry had to do with me reanimating and being able to see everyone in there, through that lens of understanding and the way that I found myself back in to really appreciating them as guideposts and potential wisdom keepers was being able to work with women, elders and grandmothers from traditions and cultures other than mine, but who had unbroken relationships to themselves as being connected to ancient lineage, ancient meaning, something really beautiful and assets that kept us connected richly to ourselves as stewards of earth and connected to being able to dream in a timeless way, and being able to understand that we all carry a certain kind of innate kind of wisdom that if we harvest it, just like harvesting a garden or an orchard, it could become a remedy or feeding or serving of others, you know, are calling.

Susan Lipshutz 10:20

So, by me searching outside of my traditions, it allowed me to then come back in and start to see the beauty as well as that which was out of balance for them and being able to invite some sorts of making peace with and doing ceremony on behalf of the wounds and the difficulties that they went through so that I didn’t have the benefit of really seeing and feeling their power and their wisdom in an unobstructed way. It was more than I really felt the absence of it and searching for. I would say the more particularly, though my grandmother, who I spent a tremendous amount of time who was immigrated from Russia, and fleed and was an orphan, and went through a tremendous amount of challenge, but I experienced her. She taught me how to cook and she taught me how to laugh, and she taught me just this the sweetness of an experience of the preciousness of life every day. She really didn’t share that element of her story, but she really lived, what she created and what she forged. She was an Aries. So, what she forged in order to create an incredible family here in the United States, and I was lucky because I was the last of the grandchildren. And so she, I just have had her to myself, and we spent a lot of time together. It’s really, really very sweet.

Susan Lipshutz 11:51

So, I think also, really, as I say, doing my own healing work, and appreciating it through the lens of the challenge that and the marginalization at the feminine is moved through, has helped me to understand and have tremendous compassion for the elements of what presented itself to me as an interception from a really strong sort of support of my own mother, and being able to appreciate the gifts that she gave me, and the gifts of her pain, because that also helped me understand my journey as well.

Candice Wu 12:26

It’s beautiful. If you’re so sweet to hear about your grandmother and that preciousness of life that she brings, and the laughter.

Susan Lipshutz 12:32

Yes, I can smell the chocolate. Those incredible cupcakes. We still do those traditions that they did, you know, with my daughters when they were little, too.

Candice Wu 12:44

Oh, that’s wonderful. That’s wonderful. Wow, you have so many different layers, Susan, of your work, and I can just hear it even in that description, and the major piece I hear is bringing people to their essence and that connection that brings us into that wild, unknown, unknown self and harvesting everything we can for that. And I’m curious, what’s alive for you and your life right now or in your work right now, your exploration and relationship with everything you’re working with?

Susan Lipshutz 13:20

You know, it’s interesting, because I feel like I always, you know, life is a spiral, you know, in terms of a journey that we have. And so, whatever we’re meeting in a contemporary way, I think it can’t help but open us up to elements of ourselves that we couldn’t get to before we didn’t have this, couldn’t be on this part of the road. So, we have, hopefully, whether it’s more maturity or we bring more perspective or we have more tools or readiness, you know, so, I think that it’s just this experience of meeting whatever is new for us in our lives, and yet kind of then how it sequences or how it activates elements within ourselves that can ultimately kind of you, being a therapist, also understand how people will come in and go, I thought I already dealt with this. And I’ll kind of I don’t see that anymore for myself because it’s like, well, yeah, yeah, we meet ourselves.

Candice Wu 14:20

Yeah. Right. I remember times I used to say that, too, and then it stopped because it was like, Oh, yeah.

Susan Lipshutz 14:29

Right, right, right, of course.

Candice Wu 14:30

Right.

Susan Lipshutz 14:31

And so, it’s just fascinating for me in that way, but also as well as my, whatever my personal themes might be, that I see this with my work as well because, you know, there’s just so many, like you said, layers to my work, and I think when I keep moving on my path, I keep reencountering.

Candice Wu 14:50

Oh, yeah.

Susan Lipshutz 14:51

That technique or “Oh my gosh, that tool” or this way that I can work because I do so much as this is this sematic work that we’re all facing, and then how can we move into a ceremonial or a ritual place to help step into a collaborative so we don’t feel like we’re passive in the process or reactive in the process, but we can say, How can I be interactive in what’s happening in my life? What’s happening in the world? And how can I collaborate with it, no matter how challenging it may be? And so, there’s that process. So, I think what I find fascinating for me, is that I’ll feel like I just keep evolving, and I don’t mean that any other way except the work just keeps opening up, and things that I’m excited or interested in. So, it’s, and then I find that “Oh, yeah, this is really important to remember how meaningful it was to do this particular kind.”

Susan Lipshutz 15:46

Like last night, I have a monthly women’s medicine circle, and so, last night, we did some cord-cutting ceremony which really had to do with unwinding from what is not life-sustaining anymore, and I sort of like it to You know, when you’re in utero, your umbilical cord connects you to the placenta which is life-sustaining, but when you come out of it it’s no longer life-sustaining, it’s not supporting you and so you cut the cord, and you connect the cord to something perhaps else, but I think we have to do that over and over again and saying, “I need to now unwind from something, that is not life-sustaining anymore, that the myth is that it’s been keeping us alive and I need it, but in fact, it’s harming me.” So, in there’s that interception of how do we differentiate that and so coming out of the mercury retrograde and so forth.

Susan Lipshutz 16:33

So, my point being is that for me, personally, I just find it so interesting, you know, to keep finding these, “Oh, there’s this little tool in my toolbox” like that man, you know, it’s like, oh, there’s this cool little gizmo and right in my pack that I can use again that I forgot I had and that’s so fabulous. And let’s work with this, and let’s construct of we’re working with astrology and we’re working with their everyday lives, and we’re working with what’s happening, but there’s something that will help us move through it, you know, so, I’m ever grateful for the time that I spent in that deep sort of practice of learning, and I’m always learning and I’m always growing. And I always feel like, “Oh, I’m a beginner again, because we’re beginning every day with the rising sun.” And yet, at the same time, there’s some developed understanding that we can work with as well.

Susan Lipshutz 17:33

So, I think what I find is really fascinating and beautiful, and I feel very called to is working on an individual level with clients, working collaboratively with more innovative, entrepreneurial kinds of spaces, working with larger groups of intentional community and retreats and so forth. However we gather is this interface around where our life is right now and how to honor it, and then how do we tap in, and how do we expand out for information, for understanding, for a reset, and a perspective, that in a very timeless, a very timely, and a very deep reference point of historical in a sense.

Susan Lipshutz 18:24

So, we go to a timeless place to discover past present future from a very different perspective, so we can move back in, like I said, as co-creators and so what I find two maps that can really help us do that is through astrology and through the Akashic realm or the Akashic experience, and so, I’ve been finding particularly and working individually with people, if they’re open to it, is working with opening up their Akashic records while also having their chart available through collaboratively, so, I don’t work with people as a one-shot consultation, because I find too many people just passively want to walk in the space and say, “Well, what are you going to tell me?” And then it’s almost like prove to me that you can move into these spaces more like a psychic reading, and then I can step out of the space of I don’t like what I hear. That’s really not, I think really deeply about collaboration that I don’t know anything more than, you know, my whole hope is to help you remember what you’ve forgotten or what you don’t have access to.

Susan Lipshutz 19:32

And so, me having access to the material can help you remember and have access to yourself. So, it’s really one of us working together and having this incredible experience of the following the breadcrumbs we’re putting together this, you know, weaving the dots of your story in a much bigger way so that we take it back into our everyday lives. And I think this is true in different ways with women, in particular, in our lost ancestry as a collective, and then understanding the power that we have now that we’ve never had before, and how to use it wisely as leaders, and stewards and a different way of collaborating with that maternal energy. And, you know, systems, too, because the astrology shows us in big trends, how the systems are all collapsing. And so, we have to create new structures, and how do we do that? I really find that really, really powerful and enjoy it very much to feel compelled that it just has so much information of value to it.

Candice Wu 20:33

Oh, yeah.

Susan Lipshutz 20:34

People are feeling that, too.

Candice Wu 20:36

I think so. And, you know, people that I previously have known to maybe just not even look in the direction of astrology have been coming up within themselves just like, “Well, what if I look? Oh, wow, that matches what happened yesterday.” And it’s this fun, delightful place that people are awakening this, to this as a tool. Some people, not everyone, and that’s okay, but I’m fascinated with this crossover, this collaboration, partnership of Akashic records and astrology, and I want to hear more about that. And before we go there, would you describe your relationship or your understanding of Akashic records? Especially for people out there that are just learning about it or want to know more, and want to know from your view.

Susan Lipshutz 21:29

Oh, sure. Yeah, that’s really all I have just like you.

Candice Wu 21:33

Thank you.

Susan Lipshutz 21:34

So, I’d love to and when I say I’d love to, I mean, I struggle with the words because it is something that is outside of our mind, and I think one of the beautiful parts of Akashic work, which I will do my best to give a glimpse of some way of our creating a bridge for that is that I think it lives in the space of wanting us to update our mind so that our mind can start to have a capacity to understand what our experiences that transcend the mind. So, really, what I’m saying is that I think many of us and I think we find this a lot, especially when we start to do this workaround heart-centered work or our soul level work or this experience of what meditation and mindfulness and you know, kind of, in that level of what we experience that is beyond what the mind can.

Susan Lipshutz 22:34

Mind has a program for that we need to find a way to have a divine mind, to have that cosmic consciousness that lives in our individual ability at the mental level so that we can hold what it is, we’re coming to understand in a non-ordinary way, that we can then help us move through our lives without having to struggle and keep repeating all these challenges, and all these things that create suffering for us, because we can’t translate them into uploading them as it relates to belief systems. I don’t know if that makes sense, but a lot of times, we’ll go through this incredible healing or we’ll get a different understanding at a, like, we get it, it’s the best way I can put it, but then our mind gets in there, our beliefs get in there that gets here, right, fear, death, unworthiness, and then if we don’t update those, so we can do them with beautiful techniques of, you know, working with shifting those through mantras and through, you know, kind of rewiring and all of that, but I think that if we can upload the basis and the premise of at the mental field, at the meta, how we’re holding our understanding, so it even goes beyond our beliefs and attitudes are informed by a deeper understanding, a deeper knowing.

Susan Lipshutz 23:57

Kind of like once we see something that isn’t just in the brain, but it’s really, we really take it in and digest it, we change it. We’re not connected to it in the same way. Like even if you took a hike, and you didn’t know how to get somewhere, but you finally get somewhere, and then you see where you’ve gone, the map inside goes, “Oh, I get it now,” and it might take me a little while to remember it, but now I understand where the route is, and I understand what it looks like when I’m on the other side of that, and I can hold that image of that bigger field, like when I’m up there, so that when I go back down, I remember where the journey really led and how beautiful the vision is, you know, the visuals. The field is the panorama of it.

Susan Lipshutz 24:42

And also, there’s another element to it, too, where it’s not only the information of what we receive, that we hold more than that it’s the vibrational frequency which gets into more, you know, esoteric concepts, but it’s like when we’ve, when we have created a shift inside of ourselves, we just feel things differently. So, when our heart opens.

Candice Wu 25:05

Yeah.

Susan Lipshutz 25:06

Right? So, if we feel things differently, and through that then, it helps us comprehend what we’re going through. Just like when we’re children and our cognition up, you know, we go through a big growth spurt in being able to go from concrete, meaning right and wrong into more abstract thinking and holding concepts, and it’s the same thing. I think that the records or the realm of the Akashic, its design is such that we mature our minds so that we can hold concepts that we’ve been trying to when we’re meditating, or we’re trying to move past some old thinking. Does that make sense?

Candice Wu 25:44

Absolutely. It’s like, it feels what you’re saying is that it’s designed to support us in more than just what we fed most of our experience through the mind and into all the ways that we can perceive, know and experience, and see.

Susan Lipshutz 26:06

Exactly, exactly. And so, the way that I got drawn into it because I was doing, I was going through my own spiritual awakening and I was sort of running around experiencing everything, you know, and not digesting it, of course, at all, but I was on a sort of a feeding frenzy, and it’s like, Ah.

Candice Wu 26:28

Let’s have the buffet of life.

Susan Lipshutz 26:30

Exactly.

Candice Wu 26:31

I get it.

Susan Lipshutz 26:32

So I, I was I received a few Akashic readings and it wasn’t so much, I can’t quite tell you what I heard. I can tell you what I felt, and what I felt was the most expansive love other than having my children, of the most expansive love, I would say it’s a similar field of, of just pure source love, of through this experience and then holding it was really on attunement that all allowed me to have a different level of calm through my experience, and a different sense of understanding that drew from whatever doors opened, that I walked through. And so, then I was just sort of like, “Oh, I really want to keep doing this. And I’d like to learn this for myself.” And then I thought: if there was the way I could learn this to be of service to other people, that that would really be something I would love to be able to do. So, that’s what I did.

Susan Lipshutz 27:27

So I’ve been working with the records for over 25 years. And I find that the work is just tremendously, there’s always some golden seeds that open up through the readings for other people, and I can’t really kind of, I have no idea what’s going to happen when we open the records and in the sense that I will see where that information wants to go, but that it in some way inform some sort of assistance for someone on the journey that they’re on or it kind of creates a fast forward in the sense to get to the heart of something that they have felt nodded by.

Susan Lipshutz 28:05

And there’s someone that I work with who’s a teacher in astrology, and he speaks about because he’s a therapist and a beautiful, deep evolutionary astrology instructor in a really rich way. And he articulated the same thing I experienced in the Akashic, which is we open up the field, it’s a field of love, and when we open up a field of love, in the space of healing, then there is a safety and there is access to an overcoming of some obstruction or not, whether it’s a karmic knot from a past life, whether it’s an episode or an encapsulated kind of traumatic or obstruction in this life, but it allows for a permeability into understanding that then we can open it up more, and we can have, and the person can feel more capacity to understand. And through the deeper understanding, not just knowing, you know, like, “Oh yeah, I know my story,” but in the felt experience beyond that, from a place of compassion can offer a sense of self-healing to it, which I remark in that as well. I feel that as well.

Candice Wu 29:21

It’s beautiful.

Susan Lipshutz 29:22

Yeah, it is very, very beautiful.

Candice Wu 29:25

Well, and when you’re saying that the umbilical cord, just like referencing back to that…

Susan Lipshutz 29:30

Yeah.

Candice Wu 29:30

….I feel almost like the way you’re describing it. It’s like taking your essential chord and plugging it back into source. The source of that you are, the love and it just reminds in it.

Susan Lipshutz 29:46

Yeah, yeah. And so yes, and so, I want to also say, just as you’re talking about that, for those individuals who have been to Peru, what is really beautiful about Peru and there are many places in the world where there’s been an unbroken relationship to ourselves as humans that are natural part of our nature and our cosmic. So, when you’re in Peru for example, the word Pachamama, which is mother, but it’s a cosmic mother because Pacha is time, and mama is Mother Earth.

Susan Lipshutz 30:22

So, there are some of the teachings in your umbilical cord and at some point in your life shifts, from your human mother to your spirit mother. So, you always want to start a ceremony by thinking: Pachamama. And all the time, and you’re doing all these dispatches, which are these beautiful offerings, which I had this benefit of learning how to do, and they’re just so exquisite and simple, but the idea meaning is that let’s re-articulate and re-reference ourselves like our GPS, that our umbilical cord goes down to be fed through Pachamama. A Pachamama Earth is also living in space in the universe, and the universe is informed by cosmic consciousness. So, cosmic consciousness has an intention, and that’s what we’re sourcing the records from, is this divine intelligence that has an intention for us.

Susan Lipshutz 31:16

The intention is that we remember that we’re loving, that we have an intention to evolve, and that we’re part of this evolution to grow. So, it’s not just universe. So, what a lot of people say, “Oh, the universe is guiding me or I’m letting the universe move through me” and it’s like, okay, but what informs the universe, right? And so, what the universe is, is a divine intelligence, cosmic consciousness, that’s almost saying: “We love you earthly being. We want you to evolve because we’re in this beautiful construct, where if you don’t evolve, we don’t evolve. So, we’re kind of moving backward. I know this serves you well, but we’re moving backward to…”

Candice Wu 31:58

I love it. No, it’s perfect.

Susan Lipshutz 31:59

So… get it together, this is what was going on around the Mayan calendar, where 2012 we’re all like, Oh, so we’re just going to fall apart, you know, all these things going to happen, and it’s like it really had to do with the Mayans are our timekeepers. And so, when you learn about the calendar, the calendar is all about time, and it’s an incredibly complex system of time that keeps repeating itself and then in this compound way, moving forward, very much like our compound where we call the compound trauma memory of the compound memory of our soul. So, around 2012 that was the whole notion was that when some people prophecies we’re talking about is that, “Hey, we’ve been here before and we blew it.” So, we’re in the, right, we’re in in the eye of the needle, where we’ve got to go through the eye of the needle.

Susan Lipshutz 32:50

So, where are we now? We’re in going into the next decade, where everybody’s going, “Hey, we’ve got like 9, 10 years or we are going to have environmental apocalypse” and it’s not to scare people. It’s just saying, “We’ve moved away from our consciousness of understanding of our responsibility to our land and our earth. We are technology grew faster than our awareness, shamans, and we’ll talk about, we just didn’t dream into our dream, the understanding that we were earth keepers too. So, now we have to include that into the dream.

Susan Lipshutz 33:22

So, you see how it all weaves together. So, its collective as well as it is individual, and that’s where we’re at that, like fast forward into this place of saying, and that’s where young ones, which is why Greta Thunberg and all of these earth guardians are coming forward at 13, 15, 18, why we’re seeing people coming in with children that are anxious and depressed. And so, everyone’s going why are they anxious and depressed? It’s like, what they’re waking up every morning to their future, which is they don’t have one. They’re seeing the earth blowing up and on fire. They’re seeing that there’s no clean water. So, they’re saying, “Hey, I’m gonna step forward and it’s my earth and so I have to, you know, I have to take care of this because you’ve all forgotten.

Susan Lipshutz 34:08

So, it’s really sad. It’s admirable but really sad that our leaders are these 15-year-olds saying, “Okay, we’re going to take leadership.” That plugs into we’re Chiron is, which is an Aries in the world right now. Chiron is in astrology is the wound. The planet Chiron speaks to the wound and the remedy of the wound, and it’s just gone into Aries and Aries is forging action, leading. It’s an initiatory energy. It launches the spring. So, these are warriors coming in things, you know, “The heck with you Let’s go. We’re not waiting for, we’re not going to read this anymore. We’re going to take action.” So, I see it all leads together in and why we are, where we are, and why.

Candice Wu 34:55

In Hong Kong, too.

Susan Lipshutz 34:56

Correct.

Candice Wu 34:57

And all the young people that are just…

Susan Lipshutz 34:59

Taking to the streets.

Candice Wu 35:00

….relentless. Yeah. And beautifully collaborating with each other. It’s, yeah, this is, I love this description of it.

Susan Lipshutz 35:08

Yeah, and the intergenerational piece of this, where we have elders that have lost their voice. That’s why when I started working with the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, they were saying, we’re only doing this to awaken you to the wisdom of, the lost wisdom of eldership. You have marginalized eldership and put them into places, warehouses, and forget them, and elders have all this. They’re like time capsules have this incredible knowledge, and that we have just discarded because they don’t have anything that we feel is a value to our culture. So, when we start to reanimate that, we start to reanimate, you know, everything. So, we need that intergenerational wisdom instead of using our world, right?

Susan Lipshutz 35:54

So, getting back to the Akashic records, we can see the value of how by piercing the veil of time, and how by resourcing a memory field of understanding of ourselves, our past lives, our multidimensional self, who we are to one another, who we are to the world, our mission, all those things that we reawaken. So, how we sort of find it in a way or where is it been? It’s really fascinating, because so, I liken it when people used to ask me about, like, how do you describe the records? I would be fumbling along, because when I started working with it, the, you know, the internet, the World Wide Web was just starting. And now, of course, that’s our whole life. So, I say it’s very similar to the cloud.

Candice Wu 36:42

Yeah.

Susan Lipshutz 36:43

So, when people go, well, what’s the cloud? And how do I get on really what is in my cloud? And everything’s stored in my cloud, and I go, well, ah, the records. So, we have these weird, we have a cloud and the cloud is up there, but how do we connect with it? So, by opening up in attuning and learning how to connect to this vibrational frequency of the Akasha, we can access our cloud and then we download it and we upload, so there you go. So, and then we keep getting upgrades. So, our life-lesson in some ways are the upgrades like you know, we don’t we simply cannot carry all of that information, and it’s connected to collective information. So, we’re really doing that.

Susan Lipshutz 37:29

So, when we, say when you Google the records, there’s a lot of material like everything else, but there are people who have independently discovered so to speak this beautiful experience and it’s not exclusive to the Akasha, I mean really beautiful wisdom. Teachers that we love that throughout all the ancient traditions or all the spiritual traditions or have spontaneous experiences and are they able to work for lack of better word we say channel are tapping in if they’re very, if they have very clean energy, and I think part of it is you, yeah, you have to find a way to grid the space.

Candice Wu 38:07

That’s right.

Susan Lipshutz 38:08

You know, so that, because a lot of times we’re bringing in, like when we start to tune in, we can bring in a lot. It’s like I kind of look at it as, in the old days, when we had radios, where we had to turn the dial, you know, where the old ham-radio, where we had a radio wave into the real frequency, we get a lot of static when we’re starting to open up to psychic realms for lack of better word or intuition, we get a lot of static and that creates actually a lot of difficulty for us, because that’s when we start to actually pick up other people’s stuff or material that really isn’t ours or material of pain that’s on such a deep amount of pain and anxiety in the world today. And so, we have to lift beyond it like an airplane we have to keep going up.

Susan Lipshutz 38:52

So, if we live to a frequency where it is at a causal level where it’s beyond karma, where it is free choice free will, that’s the Akashic, it’s really pure love, pure source, but we have to learn how to do it, and then we have to stay there, and then we open up to a free then that that space really protects us from bringing in a lot of extraneous material, including our own, you know. So, I think that’s the process of refinement.

Candice Wu 39:18

Yeah, absolutely. I was, that does bring me to that, the question. How is this similar different to, for lack of a better word, other psychic gifts and intuitions and clair abilities? And I think that that does answer that to some degree. It’s about the refinement and which space you’re tapping into. Would you say more?

Susan Lipshutz 39:39

Exactly, exactly. And that’s, yes, yes. And so, again, I think in terms of looking at source, I mean, their urge is so many kinds of ways in which we see when we start to look for this material or this understanding all the way back to the Christ consciousness and that sense of when Christ or the, I’m not well versed, but the last years that people speak up around that the journey of this ascension, that was perhaps kind of merging with the Akashic field or light so that then this individual could hold a sense of that deep kind of love and understanding that then came back to teach.

Susan Lipshutz 40:22

But there were around the turn of the century was really when a lot of like Rudolf Steiner and the Theosophical society and that movement and Europe in particular in you know, United Kingdom, coming to the United States, that where is more looking at spirituality and esoteric teachings, and then bringing it in, that we see a lot more writing because there’s a lot of world tradition that then transcends, you know, starts to anchor into the wisdom traditions and Edgar Cayce did a ton of work, you know, around the Akashic field and the Akashic records and reading, and his teachings and his books that he wrote, but the person that I think is just an incredible archivist and individual who’s brought through so much around the Akashic realm, and the Akashic teachings is Ervin Laszlo and he’s in his 90s, and he’s written something like 70 books, and if you, I had the pleasure of being in his presence a couple years ago, as many of his books, he’s extraordinary, and he, if you read about him later, but he was like a child prodigy and music and, and then led him to this interest in thought field, and then systems theory and quantum thinking at a time where no one was really speaking about this, and starting to encounter the Akashic realm and then started to look throughout the world and ultivate people’s experiences and, and really decipher this.

Susan Lipshutz 41:57

A lot of people who are very, very driven in terms of science, so, mathematicians can really understand this once they move into a quantum level, and scientists, so, it’s a science, spirit sort of, you know, esoteric spiritual Arts and Science Arts in that way, but he would talk about a unified field that then played a fundamental role and then bringing it down. So, one thing that he spoke about, and I’m just going to give a little quote, it’s from one of my favorite books called The Akashic Experience, Science and the Cosmic Memory Field by Ervin Laszlo and this is actually what he did is he did a foreword and then he has added chapters from all of these extraordinary teachers around their spontaneous experience with the Akashic, you know, in their lives. And so it’s really, really a lovely, rich sort of book, but that he talks about that when we think about the Akashic as, again, this cosmic memory field.

Susan Lipshutz 42:56

So, he says around the cosmic role and encompassing reality, the unified field is a rediscovery of the ancient concept of Akasha. In ancient India, the Sanskrit word Akasha meant hasmik sky, similar to our concept of space, but Akasha refers not only to space in a modern sense, but also and above all, to the higher sphere of life and existence. The Hindu series believed that all things arise from and re-descend into the cosmic source they call Akasha. It was seen as the first and most fundamental of the five elements. So, air, earth, water, fire, the Akasha, embraced and held the properties of all five elements, and was believed then to conserve the traces of everything that ever happened in space and in time.

Susan Lipshutz 43:51

The Akasha is the enduring memory of the cosmos, the Akashic record. So, when you jump off from that, you see that It holds everything that we’ve ever been through, and then everything that the collective is ever been through, and where we are going. And then the notion, the predication of the Akasha is that when you come into a space, so, if we think about moving through like a biosphere into a new sphere, which is the thought field thought realm, then into this Akashic, it is above all the struggles we’ve been through, and it takes us to a causal level where we’re creators of free choice, free will, like Eckhart Tolle talks about the power of now, you can be in the pain body or the dream body.

Susan Lipshutz 44:40

So, if you step into possibility in that field, and you start to look at everything, you start to see, “Do I really have to keep suffering or can I move into knowledge and through knowledge, can I free what I’ve been through so that when I moved back in with this understanding, I can then start to navigate myself from this place as co-creator?” It doesn’t mean all our challenges are difficult. It’s just a new classroom to move through with them and to start to see all the material we’re looking for.

Susan Lipshutz 45:11

So, I don’t know if that helps explain things, but I love that notion of cosmic sky, and that we carry that in, and then it sort of makes sense that the missing piece for us is that our minds are really caught in a meta journey of what we’ve learned in our three-dimensional world, right? And what the constructs and what we’ve learned about how we’re supposed to move through life and who we are and what our limitations are, what our families mean, and then we start to move up to a whole different level and we take that understanding down, and we can start to work with it in a collaborative way where it doesn’t have such a hold on us, to limit us to limit our thinking then, which is why I think we collapse when we go into these beautiful space of healing, and we go, “Oh my god, I feel so free.” And then like something comes in and says, “Ah, remember, you don’t know how to do this. Remember, you’re not as empowered as you think. Remember, you come from a family that, you know, believes that we’re all strugglers or you know, that we’re suffering, right?”

Candice Wu 46:21

Yeah. This outer world that’s been constructed around it.

Susan Lipshutz 46:25

Exactly, the limited thinking that then draws us back yet. So, I don’t know if that helps.

Candice Wu 46:31

Absolutely. And I was really curious about the bridge. Well, not the bridge, but you know, I’m so glad you brought up the Sanskrit word Akash. And the essential meaning of that, and you know, I’ve studied Ayurveda some and yoga, Tantra and I haven’t really studied the Akash very much, even though that’s been a part of things, but I love this piece of what you’re bringing in this definition of it makes so much sense. And I, I’m curious, to me, it feels like there might, all maybe this is just fed through the mind-stuff, you know, that there’s some sort of gap between where the knowledge began or at least we think it did through ancient India, you know, through people seeing this, seeing and sensing and being in this realm, making contact with it as their way of being and the way it’s come delivered to maybe the Western more Western world that it seems newer, too. Do you feel like there’s a gap there or what is in between that space of time?

Susan Lipshutz 47:46

I think what’s be well, I think it was a loss of appreciating the sacred in order to build what we also needed, you know, you know, every, I don’t think this is exclusive to. I think that there are many teachings where we see I was just mentioning, for example, earth-honoring teachings, whether it’s the in North American traditions, whether it’s in South American, so the Americas, whether it’s an African, whether it’s a Middle Eastern, whether you know all the points of the world because America is such another than the indigenous, the native to America, you know, America is a young country in industrialized country in that way, but I think we don’t want to romanticize ancient teachings because there was also a great deal of challenge in those ways as well, but I think in terms of the understanding, I think that there was when we were living more by the land and we were living more by, this is where I guess moon cycles and astrology comes in.

Susan Lipshutz 48:55

When you look at every single culture, every mystical, but also just culture, when you go to sacred sites around the world, there’s always a place where you see that there was a respect for and a charting and a marking where the moon was, where Venus was, where the sundials, you know, like observatories, because they lived by charting and tracking the moon cycles, the planting, you know, all the solstices, the equinoxes, everything was in relationship to the cosmic, to the sky in order to live. So, there was a respect for the fact that we living, even we didn’t understand what all the different nuances about the earth but we knew we lived at, in order to live on the earth, we had to appreciate and respect the sky, right? The cycles, the cycles of life, and to be connected to that, and we lived in a way that was more symbolic in that sense as well.

Susan Lipshutz 49:56

So, every single tradition when you look at all the signs, right? So, the Northern Isles of the ruins are you look and you go and you see all of these symbols, and what I love what I teach in the records, they tell everybody that you, that everything is held in the records. Everything’s held in the realm. So, the more you open up to your symbolic mind, so, you open up to where do you see symbols everywhere. Everywhere you look like when you’re in parts of the world, and you look at the weavings or you look at their art, everything in there is embedded their story through symbol.

Susan Lipshutz 50:29

So, we start to open up and see that the signs that we really want to remember to, that like you talk about the bridges that are lost, because as we got more logical, right, as we got more as their maps had to do with logic and reason and schooling and education, even though there was something really interesting right to learn and to create a common language that’s and to grow to say, yeah, the earth is not flat. I mean, there are beautiful ways we start to meet each other and there are ways in which we can have technology and we don’t have to, you know, use our as much as we can carry the water in a little place, we can start to pipe the water in and move the water right. So, there really are beautiful advancements that resulted in us becoming interested in learning and growing and building. It’s just that we lost, we have disconnected value that started then to become archaic and old fashioned, and superstitious, and then scary.

Susan Lipshutz 51:25

So, the other piece of why do we lost this is that people have mystical power, at first, you would see that these were the seers, right? These were the ones that were on the court that would always say, “Okay, bring in the prophecies or bring in those who could bring in the remedies, bringing the wit,” you know, and then they became scary. They’ve started to, and that was religion, that was modern religion started to say, “No, no, you’ve got to cut these people off because they’re bringing in, they’re bringing in dark forces,” because then people wanted to control people. So, it is really a journey of power, and diminishing the sacred and diminishing the esoteric, and diminishing the women. And it was the women in the indigenous that all got thrown under the bus that they became ousted, right?

Susan Lipshutz 52:13

So, we all if we all in past lives have this mastery, we also have the past life memory of when we were sent out of the garden, so to speak. So, so this is the retrieval, right? So it’s, that’s why we don’t believe in it. So, we have to open up all of our fear around it, and we have to realize that in the mystery, in the esoteric, in the signs. When we let our mind open up to the symbols, we start to open up and we start to bring it into the logical mind that can transcribe it, and then we have the opening of the bridging, if that makes any sense, and it all its political, its religious, right? It’s spiritual.

Candice Wu 52:55

Yeah, it’s everything.

Susan Lipshutz 52:56

It’s everything. It’s everything. It’s the Akashic it holds it. That’s what I love it because, you know, I’ve done so much training myself in all these different traditions, and then I walk in the Akasha, can I go? Yeah, it’s above gender, it’s above lineage. It’s above, like, it’s everything. And so then, you as an individual can find your own, you know, ancestry, your own belief system, everything that you want is inside of there, but it’s held in a much bigger way. So, we just really can take off in some ways all the rules and move into a space where the only rule is intention, is that you’re really seeking highest and that you’re coming from a very, very clear understanding of love and truth. So it’s that, that sort of guides us. So, I do a two-pronged process where I do a preamble so to speak, that has to do with where we’re operating from, and in bringing that attunement of the Akashic field into our bodies because the bodies hold our record when we’re human in our ourselves, and then opening up the records of this like library.

Susan Lipshutz 54:06

A lot of us will go places in the world where we can feel that spontaneous experience, kind of like we’re having this download of everything, and that’s because those are those places that have not had so much dense sort of, you know, rebuilding or a diminishment, you know, so places it can be just our own backyard, but it can also be places that are sacred sites. So, like, if we go to Machu Picchu or we go to the Himalayas or we go to Chichén Itzá, where we go, you know, to the waters, certain places, wherever it might be, that we can feel where there’s this intersection between the sacred and the intersection between the nature and the holding of that, that bridge.

Candice Wu 54:51

That’s so wonderful. Thank you, Susan.

Susan Lipshutz 54:54

I know you felt it. I mean, you travel so much.

Candice Wu 54:57

Yeah, I do and it’s um, it’s lovely. To hear you speak in this way about the Akashic. For me, it wasn’t until recently that I experienced the Akash like I had a relationship with it in a more formal way, I guess is through the, like explicit understanding of it, but I have come to find it in myself in other ways, in my own gifts, and so it’s nice to have that matchup and also refined in ways by learning from you and other people. And yeah, I’ve definitely had my experiences of going to places and feeling the energy of that space that can bridge something for me or show me another piece of something.

Susan Lipshutz 55:45

Yeah, yeah. We have this awakened experience and then the challenges, somehow integrating it because it’s a much higher frequency. And so then bringing it to a much denser frequency which is our bodies and then, you know, our emotional realm and our psychological or thought field. So, to be patient and letting that kind of start to move through and blower systems out, but to just let it come down, the mountain top and then like, you know, of course, it’s like the Charlton Heston version of the commandments, but, you know, he would come down with like white hair and his, you know, sandals are blown up or something like, yeah, you’re putting your finger in a live wire, it’s like…

Candice Wu 56:31

I do experience that sometimes, though. Like it’s download, and I’m like, “Whoa,” it feels like my hair is shooting out from my head, you know. How can I explain to my family, I’m like, I just got a download of something and like to feel this. I just feel like all this energy moving through my body and they’re just looking at me like, no.

Susan Lipshutz 56:53

Our crazy family member. Yeah.

Candice Wu 56:57

That’s me.

Susan Lipshutz 56:58

That’s you, and I reframe it: as people say, I was always the black sheep. Like, I know you’re the rainbow sheep.

Candice Wu 57:04

Oh, the rainbow.

Susan Lipshutz 57:09

Yeah, it’s and I will tell people when you’re for sure when you’re starting to work with this, you need to definitely be taking like magnesium and electrolytes and, you know, definitely so and move through because you can burn out your nervous system and then because, you know, again, this is where the esoteric speak that can sound you know, like, “Oh my God this person,” but you know, getting back into I think a more generalized way when you’re saying about bridges, I think more people certainly when they’re doing yoga, we have more conversation than we’ve ever had about chakras. So, I would pair for everybody.

Susan Lipshutz 57:43

When you’re at the fifth chakra, because you think about the first three chakras are personal chakras. The fourth chakra is a bridge between personal chakras, interactive chakras, that’s the epicenter, right? But then from the heart chakra when you go up to the fifth chakra which is felt to be. So, if the first chakra is earth and the second shock was water and the third is fire, and the fourth is, you know air, the fifth is ethers and ether is the Akashic, because the fifth chakra holds that gateway not only to our voice but also up to the ascended, so, the sixth and the seventh, which means it’s the time where we start to have our relationship to our divine self, to our master guides to knowledge itself.

Susan Lipshutz 58:25

So, the Akashic is a more rarefied air, just like ethers. It’s like when we’re up in the mountain tops, and we have that rarefied air where we have like, you know, we can have altitude sickness, but it’s the higher altitude where there is just, you know, it’s almost like you know when you’re at those places where your literally touching clouds. So, when you can think of it and the chakra system, and you think about when you’re working with your fifth chakra, even though we talk about the repression of the voice and opening up our authenticity and our integrity, all of that is true and it’s opening us up to the cosmic currency. So, that’s the real gateway to the Akashic. And so, you can see it really simply when you’re familiar with it, with the chakras, it’s a way to place it on your body map.

Candice Wu 59:13

Mm-hmm. That’s lovely. Thank you, Susan. Yeah. And I want to hear about your upcoming retreat.

Susan Lipshutz 59:20

Oh, absolutely. So, now we’re going into another…

Candice Wu 59:23

Yeah.

Susan Lipshutz 59:23

Another…

Candice Wu 59:24

Shift gears that kind of quickly.

Susan Lipshutz 59:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Candice Wu 59:28

Yes, another layer.

Susan Lipshutz 59:30

Another layer. So, yeah, I have an annual, for lack of better word intentional communities. And you know, my passion and my commitment and my dedication is really to the healing, empowerment, and evolution of the feminine as a sacred activator, so to speak. And so, one of the ways that I really love to do that is doing a deep dive where we can have a space to step out of time, like the Akashic and do some work together, as a community, as a collective, and really hold space for each other and have this magical, you know, experience that is one that where we can shift something inside of ourselves.

Susan Lipshutz 1:00:08

And so, this is our 20th annual gathering and it had experiences of different locations, and we’re repeating we went last year to Santa Fe, and we’re returning to Santa Fe and actually have a, something that I wrote about that I’m going to have on my blast this, that’ll be coming up at this point, it will have already been out, but it has to do with why I have such a, you know, my individual experience that’s so special with Santa Fe, at from an Akashic point of view, we all have places that are very, that we have agreements or soul connection with. And so, for me, one of those places is in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Susan Lipshutz 1:00:42

And so, this will be a retreat, and it’s a repeat retreat coming up from April 30th to May 3rd and women that are interested in this can just hop on my website or through Instagram. On Link Tree, there’s a link right there. Facebook also has a Facebook and then those are platforms you can find me and so, it’s just gonna be a beautiful three-day, like Thursday night to Sunday afternoon. This particular theme is the, has to do with liberating our soul voice, which is very timely from what we were just talking about. And so it’s a, it’s just going to be a really beautiful time to be together and to do some meaningful work, thematically, that then allows us some ceremonial processing and process and individual collective work.

Susan Lipshutz 1:01:23

And also, I love to take us to places where because a lot of women don’t have a lot of money. And so this is sort of a vacation, too. So, we do a lot of work but we do it we’re also taken care of. So, the land is really incredible, and the food is really great and the beds are really wonderful and you know, so we just feel nurtured and nourished so you don’t only leave spiritually fulfilled, and feel really animated and activated to bring forth what you’ve learned about yourself and your what you want to bring forth in your world and your family in your life, but also you feel a real deep sense of restoration for your physical self and self-care, which is women, we’re just, you know, we can leak so we can do a lot of massages and stuff, but we have to really go into the source of ourselves to start to feel like we can hold the nourishment, and I feel like we really do that. So, anybody who’s interested in that, I’d love to have you come so, you know, if we still have spaces, please just jump in and grab one and come be with us.

Candice Wu 1:02:22

That sounds beautiful, Susan, and it’s your 20th year of doing this 20th retreat year 2020 2020.

Susan Lipshutz 1:02:29

2020!

Candice Wu 1:02:30

I just can’t help but you know, with the mental idea of 2020 in vision, seeing…

Susan Lipshutz 1:02:37

New decade.

Candice Wu 1:02:38

A new decade.

Susan Lipshutz 1:02:39

…to move into. Yeah.

Candice Wu 1:02:41

Beautiful. This has been amazing to have you talk about, everything you talked about today. It’s very inspiring and opening. Is there anything else you’d like to share today?

Susan Lipshutz 1:02:55

I’ve just really appreciated taking the time to speak with you and I really want to honor you for the amount of your dedication and the amount of material that you so generously curate, and bring forth to the collective so that they can receive this and take that in, in a way that’s meaningful for them to digest it in the, you know, in their homes, and you know, and podcasts are also in their bathtubs and cars.

Candice Wu 1:03:27

On the toilet.

Susan Lipshutz 1:03:30

Okay, we can go there. Replace the sacred.

Candice Wu 1:03:34

Yeah.

Susan Lipshutz 1:03:36

But really that intimacy and you know, the privilege of that, and you just do such an exquisite job and you’re so dedicated, and you have so much, so much gentleness that you bring to such intense work. And so, you know, I really want to honor you and the retreats that you offer and your individual work and so just the bounce and all that good stuff back to you, too. Thank you for that. You really do a service for everyone.

Candice Wu 1:04:03

Thank you so much, Susan. That’s, that really means a lot coming from you, and I just, I want to go to your retreat. That’s what I want to say right now. I may, I do have a soul contract with Santa Fe, I believe I have some. There’s a lot of energy there for me and around Albuquerque.

Susan Lipshutz 1:04:22

So you got it?

Candice Wu 1:04:23

Yeah, yeah. Well, I also had a reading from an Astro cartographer not too long ago, and he had confirmed that so that was really cool that my intuition was right on about it, based on what he had shared with me, too, but thank you so much for all that you do, all that you bring, and how you bring people together in such a beautiful, loving, mystical and mysterious way, like in the best way of mystery, and touching into for every person and the collective who we really are and what we’re doing here, it’s really magical to see you work and know you and I’m so grateful.

Susan Lipshutz 1:05:09

Thank you so much.

Candice Wu 1:05:10

And I know so many women out there are, thank you, and the world.

Susan Lipshutz 1:05:14

Oh, it’s my pleasure and I do work with men, too, but just you know, the collective ways is really more dedicated for women, but I would say to whoever’s listening, you know, if you want to write me at Susan@everydaymedicinewoman.com and you feel called to do some sessions, I work in this way, and an integrative psychotherapy and consultation and fold all this into the degree that people are open and receptive, and I do that with people throughout the world or in-person in Chicago. So, you know, just to let users know that that’s possible as well.

Candice Wu 1:05:47

That’s wonderful

Susan Lipshutz 1:05:48

So, thank you so much for inviting me. I appreciate this time.

Candice Wu 1:05:52

I appreciate you being here, Susan, and I know everyone can find you at your website, Everydaymedicinewoman.com. You’re also on Instagram and Facebook, is that right?

Susan Lipshutz 1:06:02

That’s right.

Candice Wu 1:06:03

Wonderful. Thank you, Susan. It’s been such a pleasure.

Susan Lipshutz 1:06:07

Thank you, mine as well.

Candice Wu 1:06:11

Susan, thank you so much for joining us on the show you are an absolute rainbow sheep and you just bring a rainbow of colorful gifts and abilities that spark the rainbow in me. Thank you so much for joining us and thank you all out there for listening, and I hope that you found something interesting and inspiring for you, something that sparks the next thing for you or an interest for you or whatever you take from it, enjoy that. Be sure to check out Susan’s retreat that is still open and available for you. If you are a woman and interested in it, check out the link on the show notes at CandiceWu.com/susan.

Candice Wu 1:06:57

And just a reminder that The Ally With Death Experiential is on sale until January 6, 2020. So, it’ll help you cleanse out and end this decade, like crazy this decade and step into 2020 with a clear vision, with 2020 vision, that’s at CandiceWu.com/death. And I’m wishing you all just a lovely day. Enjoy today. Take good care of yourself and see what you need for yourself today.

Candice Wu 1:07:30

Just a drop in note about my website that there are all of the experientials and meditations for you to search on the database at CandiceWu.com/meditations. So, if you’re looking for something on self-love or something to support, healing, trauma, intuition, whatever it is that you’re wanting for yourself or needing, you can search there and see what shows up. Also, the podcast has its own database and CandiceWu.com/podcast, and you can also search for topics that you’re interested in. I always recommend just tuning in and plugging into what you really feel is right for you, what you’re called to, what shows up for you.

Candice Wu 1:08:17

Thanks so much for joining us and looking forward to seeing you next time here on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

Hello, this is Candice Wu on the Embody Podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today. By now, you might have noticed that every other week I have a guest on the show, and it’s usually a friend, colleague or somebody that I’m interested in having a conversation with. And this week is no different.

Candice Wu 0:18

Our guest today is Venessa Rodriguez. She is a functional nutritionist, intuitive nourishment guide, and host of the Feed Your Wild podcast. Her mission is to awaken the innate healing capacity of women struggling with chronic disease by reconnecting them to their own medicine and nature through food, spirit, and love.

Candice Wu 0:39

Venessa supports wild-hearted change-makers to build physical health and vitality through her work, combining the science and spirituality of food using a modern functional approach, also using intuitive guidance with Akashic records and ancestral wisdom from Earth-honoring traditions.

Candice Wu 0:58

So I’m excited to bring her on the show. In this episode, Venessa and I talk about nourishment on all levels and what that means? What is food on the many levels of our being?

Candice Wu 1:08

We talked about Akashic records and what feeds Venessa’s wild. We explore ant medicine, in our own personal stories around ants, and what’s coming up for us.

Candice Wu 1:20

We also explore belonging and the relationship to what we give ourselves to, coming out of the spiritual closet, the question, what would nature do? And digesting love.

Candice Wu 1:31

The show notes for this episode can be found on my website at CandiceWu.com/podcast.

Candice Wu 1:37

And before we jump into it, I want to share that this episode is brought to you by the Soul Body Women’s Retreat. This retreat is happening in October 2018. And it completely supports my ability to create more podcast episodes, to create more healing albums and content. The Soul Body Women’s Retreat is a spiritual and healing retreat.

Candice Wu 2:01

This year, it was actually quite inspired by the location, Zion National Park, Utah just really called to me this year, because of the richness of what that area brings. The energy of spirituality and consciousness and the traditions of the Hopi tribe are in that area, as well as religion, the opposite balance of religion. I’m not religious, but I’m just so interested in that duality, as well as the caves and the depth of the caves, in contrast to the mountains and the sky, and all of what nature brings in that area.

Candice Wu 2:38

So this retreat is all about connecting soul and body, the elements of the earth and sky within us, the feminine and masculine, and balancing all the opposing energies that happen inside of us. It’s a sacred intensive of meditations, Yoga, Family Constellations healing work, Somatic Experiencing work, and spirituality to deeply heal any stuckness, belief sets or limitations, and clear up ancestral bonds that may be limiting us in some way. And embodying the freedom and specific personal intentions that each woman brings.

Candice Wu 3:16

You can find out more about this and future retreats on my website at CandiceWu.com/retreats, and again, thank you so much for supporting me, we’re sharing this retreat, because it does help me continue to create accessible information for all.

Candice Wu 3:33

So let’s get to Venessa.

Candice Wu 3:35

Hello, everybody. I am thrilled today to invite one of my friends and colleagues to the show, Venessa Rodriguez, and she is just magical. And one of the things I love most about her is how she’s taken multiple areas of her study and growth and learning over the years of her life. And completely personalized it so that it becomes a creation of her soul.

Candice Wu 4:05

And what I’m speaking to is that she is a functional nutritionist. But she’s picked up all these different ancient, wise, indigenous practices over the years meshed that science practice with Akashic records and Soul work, and in her words, Sacred Ecology, and just design this beautiful practice of nourishment to help people tune into their own souls and what nourishes their souls.

Candice Wu 4:37

So without further ado, I want to introduce Venessa, thank you so much for coming on the show. Hello.

Venessa Rodriguez 4:43

Oh, Candice, thank you. I’m so grateful to be here. And that was such a kind intro.

Candice Wu 4:49

Yeah. So I would love to hear from you. Those were my words. And I’ve just gotten the chance over the time that I’ve known you to hear from you, and hear what you do. But I’d love for you to share that with our audience today.

Venessa Rodriguez 5:03

You know, it’s funny, I think you got it right on the nail on the head when you said a mishmash of a whole bunch of these different disciplines and practices. But essentially, what I do for work and my passion, is really utilizing food as medicine.

Venessa Rodriguez 5:25

And when I speak about food, yes, I’m talking about the food that we put in our mouths as a functional nutritionist. And so I’m using food in a clinical way through functional nutrition, but I’m also looking at food on all other levels. So emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. For me, food can be you know, steamed broccoli, love from your partner, a new hobby or learning, time and nature, all of that is food.

Venessa Rodriguez 5:58

And so, I kind of see myself as a detective, and a channel for people to really come into a deeper understanding of what food they might need, right now, to nourish the parts of themselves that are hungry, and need nourishment. So yeah, we’re combining science, you know, looking at labs and blood work, and what you’re actually putting on your plate. And all of that is so important, but also bringing in more intuitive tools, as you had mentioned with Akashic records. And so tapping into the deeper realms, the unseen realms, that can bring a lot more insight and information to, you know, help one, sort of uncover what they might be needing in that moment, especially if they’re experiencing a lot of chronic health issues or feeling stuck in a rut, you know, with their life. And it’s kind of manifesting physically as well. So that’s just a little bit of what I do, and — kind of a roundabout way.

Candice Wu 7:16

Yes, no, it’s great. It feels like this juicy sandwich of seen and unseen, like, from food and physical all the way to the soul and unseen, unconscious, maybe. And can you speak more about Akashic records? And how you tap into that? And what gifts it brings to your clients and to yourself?

Venessa Rodriguez 7:36

Absolutely. Yeah.

Venessa Rodriguez 7:38

So, Akashic records, well, first, I should probably describe what they are. And then how I came into using them and working with them.

Venessa Rodriguez 7:49

The Akashic records are, it’s a bit esoteric and kind of hard to put into words. But we’re lucky in that we have a wonderful metaphor that we can use. And that is, like the cloud, “Icloud” and the internet. And so here, we are able to upload all of this data and information in our files and store it in this unseen realm called the cloud. And there we can always access and go back to it right, we can, like, you know, set up so that our hard drives back up into the cloud, and then you can tap into that in the future. And so that’s kind of like what the Akashic records are.

Venessa Rodriguez 8:32

They’re a realm that really holds the vibrational imprint of everything. So everything has energy, and everything has a vibrational imprint. And the history of that is stored in this realm called the Akasha, in the Akashic realm. And we can actually access that realm and information, and tap into the knowledge that is stored there.

Venessa Rodriguez 9:05

So I’ll give you an example. As an individual, as a person, we each have our soul file, so to speak, in the Akashic Records, and so we can go to the Akashic library. And if we have a question about something that is going on in our soul’s journey, or path or this lifetime, then we can ask, and we asked through intention and prayer.

Venessa Rodriguez 9:31

And I, as a reader, as a trained reader can tap into other people’s records with their permission, and essentially channel information that is coming through, regarding that question, and then intention.

Venessa Rodriguez 9:46

And so, I like to think of the Akashic as not just some, like, you know, here’s this library in the sky kind of thing, but that it’s also everywhere and within us.

Venessa Rodriguez 10:00

You know, I think of like the spaces in between, like interstitial space, if we think of spaces in between in our body. And I feel like that’s where the Akashic really is. It’s literally within everything. And we’re all interconnected. And so not just reading Akashic records, but actually tapping and tuning into that space can be really healing for people.

Venessa Rodriguez 10:27

And so not only do I incorporate readings and bringing in information and insight through the records for clients, but I can also help assist them in connecting to that realm. So that healing can really come through, you know, not in a sense that we may cognitively recognize, but it’s just something that is more of an energetic type of experience for people.

Venessa Rodriguez 10:54

And so, the Akashic Records, I was introduced to years ago on a personal level, so I wasn’t seeking out to incorporate in my professional life or anything like that. I met someone who eventually became my mentor and teacher. And she had invited me to learn the Akashic records. And I had only one experience prior to that, with the records.

Venessa Rodriguez 11:22

I had actually seen an intuitive who, because, after my mom, I tell my story a little bit about my mom, and how I came to this work, which is a lot longer story. But essentially, my mom had journeyed with breast cancer. And after six years, she passed away. And that was really the catalyst for everything that I do today. And changing my life in a radical way. And after my mom had passed, and crossover, I went through a grieving period, and I don’t ever feel like grieving ever ends.

Venessa Rodriguez 12:00

It’s cyclical. But in those, you know, first couple of years, I was really soul searching. And I felt a big shift in me. And so I would actively seek out guidance. And I knew of some wonderful intuitive in Chicago at that time, when I was living there. And so I went to see this one in particular. And in that reading, he told me that I would come to know the Akashic records in the way that he understands them. And that I would be able to tap into them and start working with people.

Venessa Rodriguez 12:39

And at that point, it’s not like I was doing any kind of intuitive work with others, right? It was, that to me seems like another world it wasn’t — It was just so interesting. I was like, it was one of those moments when you’re like, this guy probably tells everybody about, you know? Have you ever had that?

Candice Wu 12:55

Oh, right. Yes! It was so far out.

Venessa Rodriguez 12:59

Yeah.

Candice Wu 13:00

Was that when you were in grad school?

Venessa Rodriguez 13:02

No. So that was before grad school. Yeah.

Candice Wu 13:07

And, literally, that week, I received an email from this woman who eventually became my mentor. And she had actually, I was following her because my mom went to see her, she was an integrative psychotherapist, and I just, there was something about her, I was like, this woman’s special, you know? And what she brought to my mom, the gifts that she brought to my mom at the end of my mom’s life. And so I was following her. And she ended up emailing me about a new program she was doing, teaching the records, because she was a reader, she had been reading for over 20 years and teaching, and I was like, holy crap, you know?

Candice Wu 13:48

It’s right here for you.

Venessa Rodriguez 13:50

It’s right here the same week that he told me and so I, of course, had to do it. And that was the beginning. So that was quite some time ago. And I got hooked, I just studied and was in a group where we support each other, group of readers. And we just did it on a personal level. And so I did that for years before I started incorporating it into my work.

Venessa Rodriguez 14:16

And I think that that was a natural organic process. It was sort of creating, developing my relationship to the records, so that I could, you know, I feel like so that I can bring it in a good way into my work. But there’s also something about, you know, coming out of the spiritual closet, so to speak.

Candice Wu 14:37

Because my work was so rooted in science. And so that was an interesting awakening for me and transformation, and really incorporating and the more intuitive work in that way that seems so esoteric for people. But that was so profoundly helpful. And when I brought that into my practice, it changed everything. So that’s kind of my journey with the records.

Candice Wu 15:01

That’s really cool. I remember that time period, and also really resonated, because it’s like, you have to break through this judgment, perhaps, or just this boundary of what your science entails. And just bridging. What I’m seeing you do is bridging that to what’s already there, in the ancient realm, in the inner bodies that we already know. And tapping into that.

Candice Wu 15:32

I know that a lot of your work is helping people feel nourished in themselves and feeding their wild. And this is a question you ask your interviewees on your podcast, which is coming out soon. But what nourishes your soul and what feeds your wild right now?

Venessa Rodriguez 15:52

Yeah. It’s like I always wonder -Ask and hear other people, and then it’s turned on me, and I’m like, “uh-oh.”

Candice Wu 16:00

Right, — a little bit of, “Ooh! Wait a minute.”

Candice Wu 16:04

I love it.

Venessa Rodriguez 16:05

Um, you know, right now, what is feeding my wild is?

Candice Wu 16:13

Gosh, I would say a couple of things.

Venessa Rodriguez 16:16

One is getting so deeply connected to nature, in a way that I had never experienced before. And so what I mean by that is, nature has always been a part of my life, but I grew up in the inner city of Chicago, you know, like, I grew up with concrete all around. And although I would, every year, we would go to Puerto Rico to visit family, my family’s from Puerto Rico. And, and so there, there, there’s a lot of nature and beauty, and you know, frog sounds at night and all of that.

Venessa Rodriguez 16:53

But about a year ago, I moved to Southern Oregon, in an area that still has wildlife, you know, there’s like cougars and bears. And this is amazing. And so, for the first time in my adult life, I have this chance to explore like a kid, you know, really play in nature and immerse myself in just the magic and the beauty and then being able to have that sense of wonderment. Again, sort of restored. And so it’s a kind of remembrance, but it’s also just, it’s like play, you know, it’s playing. It feels so good and natural and healing.

Candice Wu 17:40

I was opening my email and read your recent posts on Ant Medicine. And now I’m also connecting the dots because you’re in this environment that has so many animals and that sounds like you also have the space to see, and to feel more with them.

Candice Wu 18:00

And so the Ant Medicine was really interesting, because just the other day, my partner was clearing out some dead leaves from our front space. And this might make people feel a little bit jealous. But as I’m in Bali, there’s — the space I’m living in is just one of the most beautiful homes that I have ever lived in. And when you walk into the private gate, it’s just like wooden doors, there’s this stone pathway and right there, there’s a pond. It’s surrounded by palm trees and tropical plants and leaves and foliage and it leads right to the house.

Candice Wu 18:42

So every day, we get to sit and look out at this beautiful — all these plants around us. And so he’s cleaning out some of the dead leaves. And he takes one and after he takes it out and puts it to the side, he realizes that he just stranded a whole colony of ants. And they were just floating in the water at this point.

Venessa Rodriguez 19:07

Oh my goodness!

Candice Wu 19:07

Yeah.

Candice Wu 19:08

And so he watched and wonder if he should do something. And at some point, he noticed that they had made their way over to this rock in the middle of the pond, which was a stranded rock. And so they’re all just running around on this rock. And we noticed that they have ant eggs, so there are babies coming. And they’re just sitting there on this rock. And so we have this whole, just beautiful couple of hours watching these ants. Because at that point, we were like, we have to do something, they’re just stuck here. Right, and there were some that were still stranded in the water and treading water.

Candice Wu 19:53

So I took some leaves and move them over to the rock. And he took a long palm leaf and made a bridge. And eventually, they took every single one of those eggs, every single ant went across. There were a couple that went back and forth. It was just fascinating to watch. And it didn’t take too long either. And so to get your email with Ant Medicine was just so fabulous. Because there are so many ants here.

Venessa Rodriguez 20:20

That’s so cute!

Venessa Rodriguez 20:23

You know, and like you were mentioning the bridge. I mean, I feel like, that’s what it’s about, too. It’s just like, we don’t have to do anything, but maybe, be the bridge or provide a bridge and allow nature to be the bridge. And I love that story.

Candice Wu 20:40

I like — Yeah, thank you. I like what you’re saying here. Because it gives an ease to it, that it’s — what would the potential in us, it’s already living there. And the bridge is all that’s needed sometimes or the light turned on. But it’s not like you have to force something to happen.

Venessa Rodriguez 21:00

Absolutely.

Venessa Rodriguez 21:01

So, speaking of the Akashic records and the Ant Medicine that came through, and I do these monthly Akashic Soul Nourishment readings, where each month I just tap into the records. And I asked, you know, what is the message coming in for the highest good of all those who are listening, and I just write whatever is coming through and for April, it was Ant Medicine.

Venessa Rodriguez 21:27

What I really learned from this particular reading with Ant Medicine is, you know, how closely related they are to us, in terms of characteristics.

Venessa Rodriguez 21:41

So, for example, you know, like you were saying, I mean, here, they have their eggs, they were busy, they’re doing things, they see the bridge, they take advantage of the bridge, like, they’re extremely industrious. And they have community, and they build, they farm. I mean, it’s just incredible what really happens when we take a look at the underworld of some of these creatures, you know?

Venessa Rodriguez 22:13

They create their world underground, and they have their anthills and they’re little architects. I mean, it’s just amazing. And I feel like, you know, your experience being in nature and seeing that, like, these are the teachings that were so native to us when we once lived more closely with nature.

Candice Wu 22:38

Absolutely.

Venessa Rodriguez 22:38

Right?

Venessa Rodriguez 22:39

So yeah, I’m glad that I’m so happy that you found that to be, you know, entertaining, and it seems so timely.

Candice Wu 22:47

Yes. And have you heard of Martin Horat, who is a Swiss weather predictor? And what he does is he goes and sits on an anthill. And he looks and sees what, — how the answer behaving and what they look like and how they’re moving, and if they bite, or what sense he gets from them, and he predicts the weather based on that every six months. That’s incredible.

Candice Wu 23:12

Yes, that’s what we’re talking about. You know, I feel that’s what tribes and peoples have done, since we’ve been on this earth is pay attention, like pay attention to our surroundings. And this is a good example, I was listening to an interview on the For The Wild podcast. And they were talking about biomimicry, and using biomimicry to create regenerative communities and societies and ways of being again, because we’ve kind of lost that, right? But it’s about paying attention to nature. And asking the question, what would nature do in this situation? What does nature do in this situation? And then applying that to the problem.

Candice Wu 24:11

That’s beautiful. It’s a really good question to ask ourselves, like, in any moment. And I’m thinking about being here in Bali, and as I mentioned a little bit earlier to you personally, that I came here, knowing that there are volcanoes, and they’re erupting, and there’s so much heat. And what does nature do? It just — when it bubbles up, it blows. That’s quite a lesson to me, or one that I’ve been learning over time.

Candice Wu 24:43

And when I got here, sure enough, my body reflected that and surfaced all of the heat that was latent in my body, and it wanted an expression, it wanted to blow. And it came through the form of anger. And as one of my teachers says, Red energy, and just wanted to move. And so I’m wondering how you really tune in to nature like that? And what’s something that you’ve integrated recently that nature has brought you?

Venessa Rodriguez 25:13

Oh, man, you know, I feel like they’re — sometimes I feel like, going into stillness is necessary in the moment. But then what I have learned from nature, and being outside, and being in “stillness” is that there is no such thing as 100% pure stillness.

Venessa Rodriguez 25:44

There is always something that’s reverberating, moving, whistling, rustling, moving, and so it brings, you know, you’re talking about that sense of ease. It kind of brings this sense of ease and relieves the pressure to be in the kind of stillness, that, you know, my mind kind of conjures — you know, no thoughts, no sensory, anything, like, no movement. And it’s a different kind of stillness.

Venessa Rodriguez 26:23

It’s more of, you know, you and I were having a conversation earlier of being so connected to the energy of what is around you. And to me, that is what stillness is now, you know? I can go outside. I can sit in the grass. I could be up against a tree. And stillness for me in that moment is tuning into what is going on with that tree, what is going on with the grass, and it’s never, you know, 100% stillness. So kind of — it releases that pressure.

Candice Wu 27:01

Yeah, just like laughing, as you’re saying that like laughing at us as humans that we think we can have that. I mean, —

Venessa Rodriguez 27:12

Totally.

Candice Wu 27:13

It’s a nice — I don’t know, quest, but I’m hearing and feeling that, as you’re speaking, like, stillness is always moving, stillness, it’s the moving — it’s the sinking up with nature, that might be the stillness that we’re seeking for.

Venessa Rodriguez 27:30

I love that. Yes. You put it perfectly. And, like, coming back to the fact that we are nature and so even within our own bodies, there is never true stillness. I mean, we would be dead if we had true stillness, and then even after that, there’s still stuff going on. There’s decomposition, right?

Candice Wu 27:55

Yeah.

Venessa Rodriguez 27:55

And so there’s always movement, there’s always flow, there’s always life. And in like, you were saying, tune into that.

Candice Wu 28:02

Yeah. I’m wondering from you, as you have all these tools in your belts, and so many people that you touch, what are the challenges that you’re having at this time? What has been on your heart, your mind in you?

Venessa Rodriguez 28:19

I feel like, in this work, in supporting and being of service, there is an infinite number of opportunities where, you know, things are reflected back at you. And so, I feel like there’s so much opportunity to, “Let’s choose this reflection, let’s choose this reflection to look at,” you know?

Venessa Rodriguez 28:45

For me right now, I feel this strong, it’s a desire, I would call it to shed some of these conditionings that I’ve held on to, you know, not in a conscious way, or maybe a conscious way.

Venessa Rodriguez 29:04

So my partner and I have conversations about this, and he calls it accessories. It’s like we’re walking around carrying accessories, of what we think we should be, or look like, or sound like or do. So it’s the “shoulds”, right? And what it means to be successful, what it means to be happy, all of that.

Venessa Rodriguez 29:28

And so one of the things that has been lighting me up and really catching my attention is this concept of belonging versus being. And there is an amazing author and educator, and shaman, his name is Martin Prechtel. Have you heard of him?

Candice Wu 29:51

No, I haven’t.

Venessa Rodriguez 29:52

Some of his work is just so incredible. I’m just starting to scratch the surface, right. So, he has many books, but one of them is called, Secrets Of The Talking Jaguar. And he talks about this concept of belonging that is within the Mayan culture that he’s closely related to. And that within this, their language, there is no word for being to be, like the verb, to be, or time.

Venessa Rodriguez 30:28

And so if we think about the way that language informs our understanding of the world, right? And how we live and breathe and walk in this world, it’s interesting to think of a world where we are not something, like there isn’t to be there are no generic nouns for people or things, but rather, everything is in relationship to something else.

Venessa Rodriguez 30:57

So, for example, instead of you know, that person is traveling or they’re a traveler. So you are traveling, Candice, right? Instead, they would say that you belong to roads. And so for me, it’s looking at this concept of there is no ownership of anything. Everything is part of creation and everything is in relationship to something else. And so there’s a sense of belonging and camaraderie within that and purpose inherent in one’s existence.

Venessa Rodriguez 31:39

There’s another book too on the topic of belonging that, I think is also fantastic. And the author, her name is Toko-pa Turner, the book is Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home. It just came out. But she was influenced by Martin, but she has this gift of taking these teachings, and then putting it inside the context of the English language and our understanding of the world and what that means within the context of our lives today. So it’s a fascinating concept that I’m diving into and sort of blowing my mind at the moment.

Candice Wu 32:22

I can feel that. It’s really exciting to hear you talk about that, and belonging to the roads like that just feel so different than to say.

Venessa Rodriguez 32:32

I know, it’s like, the entire language is poetry.

Candice Wu 32:35

Yes, I love that. And it also feels like, it touches. I have this feeling sense of how it touches on no sense of time, like not relating things to time or their singularity. It’s this feeling of connection and embeddedness within everything, or within the thing you can name or next to the thing you can name or see. And it also makes me think of Family Constellations, like being within the lineage of something. And being, maybe that’s with earth, and the connection with it is inherent.

Venessa Rodriguez 33:15

The concept of time to, like, having no word for time, blows my mind, but at the same time, it’s almost like, you know, you’re saying Family Constellations. And I would also bring in like, the concept of Akashic and the Akashic records, like in that realm, there is no time, space, as we know it. So it’s almost like they are living in an existence that is closer to like, the Akashic.

Venessa Rodriguez 33:50

And yeah, so it just makes me think about, what would it be like, if we lived from that place, like, if we tuned into that place where we weren’t limited by our concept of these boundaries of, you know, time, like our past. You know, you talk about Family Constellations and your brilliant, intuitive work with navigating people through that. And how, by shifting something today, they’ve literally shifted their constellation, and you know, for the “past”. And so it’s living in that space, and I feel like, then that just cracks open possibility, you know, and hope and really lifts sort of these heavier, what can feel like, a prison or limitations for people.

Candice Wu 34:50

That feels like it’s something I’m doing right now inside of me. And what I’m talking about specifically is breaking through the ideas of time and space, like, what I think this world is and what I’ve believed in, and it’s terrifying. It’s hard. What do you recommend for people on that quest? And on that journey of diving into whether the words are the Akashic or the unseen, or the very subtle, living energies that are already there? What guidance do you have?

Venessa Rodriguez 35:32

Yeah, you know, I think that is the question for so many.

Candice Wu 35:38

Yeah.

Venessa Rodriguez 35:39

So I’ll just go with, you know, some of the first things that are coming to my mind and heart right now. And with some people that I’m working with, and it’s almost like, the work is in creating the space for all of these things to flow in.

Venessa Rodriguez 36:02

So with regards to healing, for example, it’s our work isn’t to, “heal ourselves”, you know, or find somebody to heal us, because I believe that all healing is self-healing. But rather, it’s to sort of get out of our own way, and create the space for what is really so innate and natural for our body, for our heart for our soul, what it already knows what to do, you know?

Venessa Rodriguez 36:40

We’ve had many lifetimes, and so we can take our brain and our mind and just kind of step aside. And I feel like, for me, it’s kind of a hard concept to really feel into, but I feel like I’ve experienced that with accessing the records. Like, I actively have to stop and just — instead of shutting my mind up, right, and making sure that I don’t have any thoughts, it’s just having my ego just sort of step aside so that information can flow through, and I can connect in a different way. So it’s not banishing, or, you know, having this miraculous moment where I’m enlightened, and there’s no thoughts. But just creating, like a crack, just a little bit of that space to allow everything else to come in.

Candice Wu 37:38

That’s beautiful. Absolutely. And I was just thinking, your thoughts belong to the ego, just applying what you were thinking about with belonging. And so knowing its place, knowing that it’s not: “Your thoughts mean the world”, or “your thoughts are the world”, or your beliefs even, but they belong to someplace, to shift out into another place and spend some time there.

Venessa Rodriguez 38:04

I love that. Yeah.

Candice Wu 38:07

Thank you for that, Venessa.

Candice Wu 38:09

I’m wanting to shift gears here and play a little bit. Especially play off of your words and do a round of wildfire questions. And so what I’ll do is just ask you a few quick questions and just whatever comes to the top of your mind or heart, feel free to share, and they’re just playful, so nothing too serious. Ready?

Venessa Rodriguez 38:31

Okay, let’s do it.

Candice Wu 38:33

Okay. What’s your favorite animal medicine?

Venessa Rodriguez 38:36

Oh, well, you know, Ant Medicine just came through, because that’s what I’m really feeling right now.

Candice Wu 38:41

Yes. It’s so now, right?

Venessa Rodriguez 38:44

Yeah.

Candice Wu 38:45

What would you rate a 10 out of 10?

Venessa Rodriguez 38:47

What would I rate a 10 out of 10?

Candice Wu 38:49

Yes. Out of anything in the world.

Venessa Rodriguez 38:51

The intelligence of nature.

Candice Wu 38:53

Great. Despite how many times I might trip and fall well, looking at my phone, you know, while walking, I still do it over and over. I notice it. What mistake do you keep making again and again?

Venessa Rodriguez 39:08

believing that I have to do more to get more.

Candice Wu 39:12

Yes.

Venessa Rodriguez 39:13

Constantly, all the time.

Candice Wu 39:15

Like the disease of our world.

Venessa Rodriguez 39:17

Yes. And it’s like, you know, every time I shut it, it’s like, oh, there it is again.

Candice Wu 39:24

I know that too. Yes.

Candice Wu 39:26

Okay, ready for the next one? What kind of art do you enjoy the most?

Venessa Rodriguez 39:31

Oh, gosh, that was so hard.

Venessa Rodriguez 39:33

What came first to mind was dance movement.

Candice Wu 39:38

Yes. I’ve seen some of your free body, strong body love inspired movement.

Venessa Rodriguez 39:48

So much fun. Yeah.

Candice Wu 39:49

Yes. Okay, I think this will be the last one. What would be your first question after waking up from being cryogenically frozen for 100 years, if that happened to you?

Venessa Rodriguez 40:05

You know, the very first thought was, what’s for dinner?

Candice Wu 40:09

So, it fits, it totally fits. You’d be quite hungry.

Venessa Rodriguez 40:15

That’s a wonderful question. I love that.

Candice Wu 40:17

Well, and I guess, it leads me to one more question, is what are you hungry for?

Venessa Rodriguez 40:23

Oh, you know, always love. Always. And I feel like that is something that is interesting, because I feel satiated, yet always hungry. Right? And I feel like that’s just sort of the nature, it’s like, there is no destination, you are never full. Because when you get there, then you’re like, oh, then there’s more. Because that’s the medicine, like, that’s what keeps us going. It’s this never-ending well of love that is available to us. So just to stay open and allow.

Candice Wu 41:01

Yeah, that’s really a good reminder and a good way to see it. Because if we look on the, like food, physical food level, if we filled ourselves with this most delicious, scrumptious meal, and we didn’t let it metabolize and integrate and eliminate, you know, some parts of it, then we would just be bloated all the time. We have to and then we’re hungry again.

Venessa Rodriguez 41:26

My gosh, that is so true. It is exactly like digestion and metabolism. I mean, we have to let it go once it’s gone through us.

Candice Wu 41:36

Yes, we’d be like love hoarders. Let that digest and move and give more space for something else.

Venessa Rodriguez 41:44

Although, you know, I wouldn’t mind being bloated with love for a minute.

Candice Wu 41:49

But that’s really an interesting image. I wish for you that you are bloated with love.

Venessa Rodriguez 41:58

Like the new Valentine.

Candice Wu 42:01

Let’s — thank you for playing with me. Let’s shift gears again. And you have some gifts for listeners today.

Venessa Rodriguez 42:09

Yes, so I am so excited just to be on and chat with you. I mean, that’s one of my favorite things. You’re so brilliant and fun to talk to. But I’m also excited to connect with your audience. And I have on my website a, what I call a Sacred Ecology Journey and Activation audio.

Venessa Rodriguez 42:34

And this is something that I created because I found that one of the first challenges that people have, especially when they’re dealing with a chronic illness or health challenge is really uncovering what is keeping them stuck. And not knowing what foods to bring in right now for further nourishment and clarity. And so I wanted to create something that was really working with just the intuitive realm for each person. And, you know, because we can be so in our heads, especially in those moments.

Venessa Rodriguez 43:18

So this is a meditation journey for people to take and just sit back, relax, you know, plug in their earbuds, and just go within.

Venessa Rodriguez 43:31

And so, the Sacred Ecology Journey and Activation Audio are available on my website, wildlyrooted.com, that is free, and so that you could sign up for that there.

Venessa Rodriguez 43:44

And I’m also excited to offer anybody who’s listening, that I have a few spots open for a 45-minute Soul Nutrition Assessment. And so I have longer ones that are paid, 75 minutes long, for people who are interested. But this is sort of a taster. And to really dive deep into the Sacred Ecology, what we were talking about earlier, what is going on.

Venessa Rodriguez 44:14

So after you do the meditation, then you’ll have a bit more to work with, with these Soul Nutrition Assessment sessions. And we can explore your Sacred Ecology, we could explore what nourishment you need to bring in and dig into what might be behind your health challenge, you know? What is at the root of it.

Venessa Rodriguez 44:35

And so I have a few spots open for that. And you can go on to wildlyrooted.com/embody. And there will be an application so that you can sign up. This is a totally free session. But I also want to make sure that it’s a good fit for everybody. And so I just have an application process for that.

Venessa Rodriguez 45:00

And yeah, so if you’re interested in diving deeper in that way and looking at, you know, the functional nutrition aspect of it, so the science aspect of it, but also the intuitive nourishment aspect of it as well. Man, I encourage you to check that out.

Candice Wu 45:18

That sounds beautiful. Venessa, thank you so much for offering that to our audience today. And I cannot wait to dive into the Sacred Ecology journey. I haven’t done that yet. But I remember the session that I had with you early on and thinking about you offering this 45-minute nourishment, journey for people, that sounds fabulous. And I know those lucky people will get so much out of it.

Candice Wu 45:47

And I want to just share one piece that I got, when we did Akashic records together for me, I remember you sharing this image that you saw, of, I don’t know if it was me or a spirit guide, it almost doesn’t matter at this point, but putting me, I’ll just say me, me putting like stakes into the ground in the four corners or stones, and like digging my hands into the earth. And it was this message of being in the ground and really getting my hands and feet into earth. And that image was so powerful, because not only you gave me the words that you felt behind it, but I could see the picture. And that gave me a whole download of sensing information that words really couldn’t. And so I think that’s such a beautiful aspect of your work. Thank you so much for what you do.

Venessa Rodriguez 46:45

Oh, Candice, thank you so much, I mean, ditto to everything and my experience with your Family Constellation work. I really made some incredible shifts in my own journey. So thank you.

Candice Wu 47:01

I’m so glad. You’re welcome. And as we wrap up today, is there anything else you want to share, any last words or thoughts that come up for you?

Venessa Rodriguez 47:11

Yeah, you know, I’ve been really feeling lately, just this energy, this flow, especially around the time of Earth Day, you know? It’s just sort of, there’s all these posts of, you know, all these wonderful things that we can do to reduce our impact or, you know, reuse, recycle and all that great stuff that is really good to know. But I really do feel that so much of what I have seen with clients and my own experience with dis-ease. And this is really stemming from, you know, a disconnection. A disconnection from ourselves and disconnection from Mother Earth. And when we can tap back into that, it’s really love, like, that’s what it is.

Venessa Rodriguez 48:07

It’s this, the energy that Mother Earth provides, it’s love and universal energy and the Akashic, right? And so if we can just begin to tap back into that, and one way that we can do that is just connecting with nature and connecting with our own bodies. And what you’re offering is such a gift to the world, Candice, you know, in this podcast of embodying, that step alone is so huge for one’s healing journey and such a gift that you can give yourself. So yeah, just taking that one step forward into nature and into love.

Candice Wu 48:49

I love that. One step forward into nature and into love.

Candice Wu 48:53

Thank you so much. Where can we find you?

Venessa Rodriguez 48:55

You can find me at wildlyrooted.com. I am also hanging out on Instagram now. My handle @wildlyrooted. And I’m coming out as you mentioned with a podcast, too. And Candice is going to be on it. And it was such an amazing read interview, you guys are gonna love it!

Venessa Rodriguez 49:21

And the podcast is called, Feed Your Wild. And it’s really talking about everything that we’ve talked about today, food for your body, mind, and soul. And that is coming out mid-May.

Candice Wu 49:33

Beautiful. Thank you so much. And I so appreciate that you’re here today with me and this beautiful conversation we got to have. And I hope to see you soon.

Candice Wu 49:45

Yes, Candice. Totally. Thank you so much for having me. This was a blast.

Candice Wu 49:51

Thank you so much for listening. And I want to just mention how much I enjoy these conversations with my guests because it really challenges my edges. It brings an aspect of energy and discussion that I’m intrigued with and also pushes my boundaries. And I am so thankful that you joined us for this conversation.

Candice Wu 50:12

As I mentioned before all of Venessa’s information and the show notes can be found on my website at CandiceWu.com/podcast. And there you can also find all of the rest of my podcasts, including the a{Live} now mini-series and other episodes of guests conversations.

Candice Wu 50:32

Before you go, I’d also like to invite you to subscribe to my weekly newsletter and become a member of the Embody Community at CandiceWu.com/embody where you can receive lots of free resources on embodiment and healing, meditations from me, as well as other information about retreats, workshops, private sessions, and other offerings. See you next time on the Embody Podcast.