Candice Wu 0:00
Hello everyone, welcome back to the Embody Podcast. It's great to have you here. Today, you might hear some extra sounds of Mexico City, even though I'm underneath my blanket fort lodged between a dresser and a bed, with the blankets overhead and all the windows closed and curtains shut. The sounds are still totally infused here and at any moment you might hear someone yelling tacos, enchiladas, tamales or a siren might go off, or a truck door might slam, dogs barking, what else, music or just random conversations. So, if you do hear that, just know that that's the pulse of Mexico City arriving to you now, and of course, the birds chirping, which is a lovely background.

Mexico City has been my hub for the last three weeks. I'm going on my fourth week here in Mexico and I'm absolutely loving it. If you've been listening in, you know, I've been to Oaxaca, and I've also spent some time with horses at a Hacienda outside of Mexico City. And last week and weekend I spent time at the hot springs at Las Grutas De Tolantonga and De Gloria or La Gloria, it was gorgeous, and I got to soak in the mineral waters.

By the weekend, though, it was wild with families and lots of kids. And, what I wasn't told about the best place to stay in that area was that at 6 AM, I would be woken up by the alarm clock of screaming kids, but it was a beautiful time and the sun was great, everything was just gorgeous, these waterfalls and cascades and being in these caves of the Grutas. The only thing is that I kind of suffered because I get really cold and the weather was cold, while the water was hot, I wouldn't say hot, kind of warm for me getting out of the water, I was just shivering the whole time. But it was gorgeous.

If you want to see some pictures of that you can check out my Instagram, especially the story feed. Just click on Mexico and travel. You'll see some of those pictures there.

Hello and welcome. You're listening to the Embody Podcast, a show about remembering and embodying your true nature, inner wisdom, Embodied Healing, and self-love. My name is Candice Wu and I'm a holistic healing facilitator, intuitive coach, and artist sharing my personal journey of vulnerability, offering meditations and guided healing support, and having co-creative conversations with healers and wellness practitioners from all over the world.

So we have a couple of weeks left on the Skillshare class that I'm offering for free on dreamwork and how to prepare and support your body in being able to remember your dreams the best, how to record your dreams and recall them, and support your nervous system in the playful, imaginative space that dreaming and dreamwork requires. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/dreamclassone.

If you've ever wondered, how can you recall your dreams or improve upon your memory with your dreams, this class might be for you. And as you hop on to Skillshare you can sign up for a free membership if you don't already have one and that class is offered for free right now until March 10th 2020.

So today's episode is a{Live} now episode, which means that I'm just going to be talking about what's alive for me now and what's been going on for me, the themes of my life, challenges, and before we start, I'd encourage you to check in with yourself, sense how you're doing and check-in with what's alive now for you. So let's take a moment and do that together.

Knowing that every moment is a fresh moment, every moment's evolving. So as you just arrive here, in a quiet moment with yourself, notice what there is to notice and feel where your heart is, where your mind is and your body. Notice if there are any struggles or things weighing on you. Notice what you need, what you want, and something that's been highlighted for me is noticing where my body feels like doing something would be like moving a boulder or a certain thing or activity or task feels like it's just so hard. Sometimes that feeling is quiet. So check in with all the things of your life and notice if anything tugs on you in that way and where you sense that in your body and whatever is here, just honor that. Respect yourself and appreciate what came through.

A couple of weeks ago, I did a podcast about proprioceptive writing, which is a tool that I learned at a retreat recently. So some of this stuff that came up for you today might be really nice to do some writing with. You can check that episode out at CandiceWu.com/proprioceptivewriting.

And for today, let's jump into the episode.

So as many of you know, when I began my trip, before I began my trip to Mexico, I had to work through some fears about Mexico, fears of my own safety, and fears of what could happen. There are so many ways that the media tells us what could happen in Mexico and had to sort all that out for myself. What was the media? What was not true? What is my own vibration? And what does that attract? What am I really afraid of?

And as I arrived here, I have been met with so much care and love. Just in about three hours alone, I was offered to have dinner with two families next to the river at the Grutas. I was given free soup because this one man had a crush on me wanted me to be his girlfriend. And then, I was invited to travel back from Tonga to Mexico City, which is about a five-hour drive with a family that had a car. Otherwise, for me, it would have taken a shuttle and then figuring out where the bus was and taking that bus home. But the adventure with this family ended up with a really nice meal and dancing, salsa dancing at the restaurant, and ended with a night of dancing as well at a different place, salsa place that night in the city.

So I need friends and also felt like people here really know how to bring you into their families. There's this openness that I don't experience as much in the United States just, you're part of our family now, come eat dinner with us.

So while I've been receiving that from the people, I've also been receiving the energies of the different places that I visited. The energies of the hot springs were beautiful, clear, and magical energies, very calming and it brought me the sense of flow of being in myself, being at home in myself, and sitting into my own energy while allowing the flow of things to come.

And what I do when I'm in a place is I meditate and I cycle the energies through my body and also give to the space what might be needed that I have and allow it to integrate with my energy so that essentially I become one with that and take it with me as much as possible.

Do you have a place that gives you just the right feeling that you really need right now? Especially if it's been a place you've been to, you can really integrate that in a way that seems more solid. However, if you've really developed your imagination and your imaginal skills, then it doesn't really matter. You can imagine that place and resource at any time, but it is with you and your body.

Many of you know I've also challenged myself to surrender to my intuition to follow the whims of it and to trust it no matter what and that led me to some interesting experiences, it led me to making friends. It led me to not knowing where I'm going into days, but trusting it and then allowing things to matriculate and come to fruition. And it felt really good.

What can sometimes happen to me, with my intuition is that I ignore it for some time. If it's something that seems to rub up against structures or things that I've created or ways that things are, and maybe I don't want to face that, then I can ignore it. Or, I can just kind of keep pushing through overriding or bypassing that sense in me.

So what I recently found with that is kind of some big news to me, and it might be for some of you who are regular listeners.

What I found is that I need to take a short hiatus from the podcast. Well, shorter, not I don't actually know. But the guidance that I'm getting is that I need to take a break and to let myself have total freedom from the timing that I have decided for myself, that I publish this every Monday.

I need to reset my relationship with the podcast. It has been such a wonderful experience, to do the podcast and then to receive feedback, to know that it has trickled into many places and supported me and making connections that some of you all have reached out to me and shared your thoughts or reached out for sessions. It's been fabulous.

And in fact, I forgot to mention it but earlier in February, I believe it was the fourth, was the podcast's two year birthday. So the podcast is now a toddler.

And as every parent knows, when you have a toddler, you also need a break. You need a vacation, you need someone to help you through it so that you can have some time off.

So that's what's happening for me now, and it was a bit hard to admit.

The sense was this weight, like, I was carrying a boulder. It's like, Okay, the next episode needs to be completed by this date and I'm not ready or the sound quality in this space that I'm at is not good enough. You know, even as I speak, I can hear trucks roaring by, but for me, that was just really a sign that I needed to let it go for now and allow my soul, allow what's inside of me to unfold, because maybe I just need a break and some new energy or maybe there's something else my attention and energy needs to be placed into.

Maybe I just need a rest. Maybe some other format of the podcast is meant to emerge. But I won't know until I do it. And it was tricky because I also had a podcast guest set up. And I really love this person. And I hope to have them on the podcast later. At least, that's all I can feel now. But it didn't feel right to do it today and this week, in anytime in the near future.

So do you have anything like that in your life where you feel like you really need to make a certain choice to either let go, end something or start something and the structure of what you've had in place seems to be the way you push through or the way that you just keep going with and there's this little nudge in you or a bit of pressure when you think about or picture doing the thing that you want to do or the thing that you're supposed to do?

If you haven't little tension or constriction or nudge, that's probably your body trying to say something. And it doesn't always mean to let it go. But maybe there's fear. Maybe there's a message that says, this isn't for you now, even though it was before.

So for me, the podcast has just been excellent and just this wonderful platform of connection and sharing, and for me to grow. I really honor it and thank the podcast itself for coming to life. And I thank all of you for listening and receiving me and for even giving me critical feedback at times, helping this to grow into what it needs to grow into. And it's not the end I don't feel it's the end. But I do want to let you know that I will be taking a short break on some weeks because there are still some episodes that are in the pipeline that are fresh.

I have an interview coming up with Dr. Terry Fernandez. And we talk all about polyamory and diving into knowing ourselves as polyamorous beings. So that's coming up.

And as possible that I just feel the inspiration to whip up something on the spot. But I am going to let it come with more spontaneity and freedom without the boundaries and structures that I had created for myself, that I had set for myself for two years.

One of my friends reminded me that we only know what we know, we only know what's connected to what we've experienced and what we can sense now, our knowing is limited to some degree and if we are expanding then we do need to let go of, or not placed too much stronghold on the thinking, the ways that we believe things work right now, and what we believe right now, because it's going to open up the new thing, the expansion, is trying to make its way in. And if we bind ourselves with the thinking that is of the now, we might not receive that.

This is actually connecting with another theme that I've been experiencing.

Before I left and while I first arrived in Mexico, I was feeling a lot of spiritual dismantling, feelings in me breaking down, sloughing off, fear, and coming into more safety, but feelings that would only arrive as words such as, Who am I now, what am I doing in life? What am I doing at all? What is this experience of being human? And those questions were not to be answered. I had enough sense in me to know that, but to be felt through and expressed outward and to find myself through it and to the other side.

And I can't say that I'm on the other side, and all the way through it yet, but it's been helping me to read the book: No Death, No Fear by Thich Nat Han. One thing he said is that if you have a notion about Nirvana, that notion should be removed.

This is a direct quote, if you have a notion about Nirvana, that notion should be removed. Nirvana is empty of all notions, including the notion of Nirvana. If you get caught in the notion of Nirvana, you have not touched your Nirvana yet.

This deep insight and discovery of the Buddha took him beyond fear, beyond anxiety and suffering, and beyond birth and death.

And he also said when you have a match, you have the condition to make a fire. If the flame you make with that match lasts long enough, it will burn up the match. And that match gives rise to the fire but the fire itself burns up the match. And the teaching of impermanence is the same. It helps us to have an awakened understanding of impermanence. And the insight of impermanence is what will burn up our idea of impermanence.

I wanted to read those two excerpts because whatever ideas we do have about truth and who we are, what we're meant to do, or what we're supposed to do, especially, the best thing to do is start to acknowledge those things, and to look for them wherever they emerge, because those are the constructs, such as Nirvana, impermanence, that really bind us to some experience that is not the full expansion of that experience.

Whatever constructs I have, this book has really helped me break down some of them without really even knowing what those are. I was feeling a lot of grief and what I could place it to was this feeling that I missed my mom, I miss my family.

And as I was starting to explain, it will be a Dia De Los Muertos to my mom, and what it is, even though it's not until the fall, October 31st through November 2nd, as I understand it.

I told her that I wanted to come back to Mexico during that time and experience that because it was similar to what Chinese people do with their ancestors is go to the cemetery and bring all the foods they like, bring celebratory, like things to celebrate with, paper money, we bring the money to send to them. We have all the food and drinks they like. We have some that we like and we have this time of eating there and honoring our ancestors.

And I was sharing with my mom that for El Dia de Los Muertos, The Day of the Dead, that it's similar, and Mexicans believe that there's that time where the layer between the spirit world and human worlds or the concrete world is thin, and their ancestors can come and visit them, and they can be together. And they create an altar of all these foods and beautiful artwork, skulls, sugar skulls and other things that call them home.

And when I said that to my mom, that this altar calls them home, I began to cry and I felt like I needed to call my ancestors home. And it's different from feeling like, you know, with Family Constellations work that my ancestors are there. At least something in me clicked where I felt like calling them to me was a different experience than them being there and me going to them or somehow bringing them more into my experience of my body, my home was important here. And I can see my grandparents and their home with me. This is their home in me, in this body. In this experience that I live, they live through my eyes, through my senses, they're in me.

And then I read this lovely quote from Thich Nat Han in the same book, and that is, where is that? Here it is: She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet. Wonderful. Each time my feet touched the earth, I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine alone, but a living continuation of my mother and father, and my grandparents and great grandparents. Of all my ancestors, these feet that I saw as my feet, were actually our feet. Together, my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil.

I love this. This is exactly what I began to feel and it came to me at the right timing.

Well, it actually came to me one night when I was offline, I didn't have good Wi-Fi. And I looked at my computer and said, What do I have on my computer that I can read or watch? And I had this PDF book of No death, No fear. And another excerpt I really liked from the book: If you look at a friend with the eyes of a meditator, you will see in him or her all generations of their ancestors, you will be very respectful to them and to your own body, because you will see their body and your body as the sacred home of all our ancestors. You will also see that our bodies are the source of all future generations.

I love when different wisdom sets overlap, and this is just so beautifully overlapping with the wisdom of Bert Hellinger, of the many who practice Family Constellations.

Our bodies are the living memory of our ancestors, it's the home of our ancestors as Thich Nat Han says. And when I do see another person and I sense and see their ancestry, I see a fullness. I see love. I see that challenges coming through, and where they might originate, the darker pockets of what's unintegrated or where the fears held. I see that I'm not their parents and not responsible for making them happy, but that I can be loved by seeing them.

And this, coming at this time where I was feeling, I missed my mom. I missed my grandparents. I miss my family being with me, brought me a new level of integration.

The loneliness I felt was just these keyholes to allowing me to feel a new sense of belonging and integration with who I am already. The ancestors that are in my being already and that love me.

Early on, I did an episode of basics of Family Constellation, I think it's Episode Five. You can find it at CandiceWu.com/ep5. And it comes with an experiential that invites you to picture your ancestry behind you. And that's that same offering here from Thich Nat Han.

And the last bit that I have been feeling into from his book is about No death, No fear, the sense that if you don't believe there's death or birth, if you look in his description, that there really is no birth and no death, that nothing does die and nothing does ever get born because it all is a continuation. Obviously, this requires a much longer description, but just the sense that when we see something as birthing and coming into form and aliveness, it's just that all the conditions are right for it to show up in this way. But it came from many things and it is a continuation of many other things.

So if you see a flower come into shape and form, and you could imagine or say that it's being birthed, it is because of many factors that allowed it to have what it needed, sufficient conditions to become a flower, had the water, had the soil, had sun, it had a seed, and none of that was created out of nothing. It was already there in many other forms, and then when it dies, it passes into the earth. But that's not really dying, that's a continuation, and with people, that's the same.

And I don't know how I can really totally understand it on one level I do and on another level, there is this sense of birth and death. I can feel like, a concrete or human reality. But something about it was so soothing, his invitation that if you've suffered a loss, the feeling of grief, that someone is gone or not with you anymore, that maybe there is something for you here, in No death, No birth, no death, no fear.

And for me, it just let me grieve more. Let me bring in a new idea and break apart, loosen up old ideas, some of my old ideas to where I can feel even more freedom now.

And the last thing that I got from the book that has been really helping me is this question of, where will I be in 300 years, will this matter?

And so whatever it is that is in front of you, if you just ask yourself, you know, will this matter and even five years? See what the answer is.

It can really bring your values forward, it can bring what matters to light. Maybe that's similar to the Ally with Death experiential. The shaman death, it brings forward in a heightened way, what's important.

And so as I make the choice to take a little break from the podcast, even though I feel it's so important to continue, in some ways, will it matter in five years or 300. Now, what really will matter is the surrender that I am choosing, because this is part of it, this is one big piece of it, that I surrender to the sense of me that says, No, don't do it right now. And I can pick it up anytime I want and that there's something else for me to do, even if that's nothing.

So in this next couple of weeks, I will rerun a couple of episodes that I really like and that might offer you something now. And this is a really good reminder that all the podcast episodes while in the beginning, I do share some more moment to moment what's happening in life, experiences that I'm having.

In general, each episode is a theme that could be everlasting in a way or evergreen, where if you need that energy or some transmission from that specific topic, that it's there for you and it can be timeless.

So I trust that you're guided to any podcast that calls to you. And let's see which ones will be rerun, what I'm guided to.

And also, lookout for that new episode with Terry, with my guest, Terry. And I look forward to sharing with you what happens in the meantime, through this time.

If you want to stay connected with me, I still will be doing my newsletter, here and there, maybe once a month or every couple of weeks. And so that's one way to stay connected or on Instagram with me.

And let's see what emerges here. Let's see how things evolve or take a new shape. Or, maybe just, I'll come with a breath of fresh air.

Thanks so much for listening. All of you out there that are my friends, that are colleagues, that are people that I've never met, but maybe you've sent a message to me, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart and I look forward to connecting with you next time that my spirit calls me to record something. S

So as we close today, I'm wishing you all a sense of loving yourself, well-being, peace, being at home in your body, and the courage to look into the notions, belief sets, structures and truths, “truths” that you have decided upon or have been bound to, not that those are bad, and there are some times it really needed. But that if it is time for you to move beyond them, to let the match burn up in the fire, to have that courage to do so and also the loving and the light in order to be able to bring your ancestry home and into your body, sometimes that can bring difficult feelings.

And we can also resource the best of our ancestry, to be at home in our bodies. Let our bodies be the continuation of the many that came before us, the many that obviously did it right for you to exist.

Thanks so much for listening. See you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

In this episode, Mary Oliver and a poem by Mary Oliver, loving what it is that you love and being free to do so and using self-forgiveness to release some judgments and belief sets around being yourself versus pleasing others and other ways of being around niceness, and ways that we can embody being ourself fully. Also, a little bit about how immigration and my ancestry and past life experiences have conditioned me to please others.

Candice Wu 0:49

Hello, and welcome. You’re listening to the Embody Podcast, a show about remembering and embodying your true nature, inner wisdom, Embodied Healing, and self-love. My name is Candice Wu and I’m a holistic healing facilitator, intuitive coach, and artist sharing my personal journey of vulnerability, offering meditations and guided healing support and having co-creative conversations with healers and wellness practitioners from all over the world.

Candice Wu 1:24

This episode is sponsored by something that I love which is the Embodied Healing group that happens once a month. And if you want a little bit more soul support, body support, energetic support, if you want or need a compassionate space to do some healing work within a group that allows relating to one another and connection as well as working with me and in the many different ways that I do work with people, check the group out, it’s at CandiceWu.com/support.

Candice Wu 2:00

So I’m going to start off today with a poem by Mary Oliver and this poem is called Wild Geese. Many of you probably know this poem and I want to send a shout out to Kristen Donigan, who is a physician at the Raby Institute for sending me this link. It’s a SoundCloud link of David White, who’s another poet, reading Mary Oliver’s poetry and talking about it so passionately. And in her words, it’s devastatingly beautiful. So thank you, Kristen, for reminding me of Mary Oliver’s poetry and for bringing me such an important message right now that just really touches me and has also touched several of my clients, since I’ve received it and listen to it, which is only like, yesterday, well, yesterday at the time of this recording.

Candice Wu 2:56

So I’m sending my gratitude to you Kristen, thank you so much for listening to the podcast, for connecting with me and also sharing this awesome reading by David White and commentary by him of Mary Oliver’s poetry, which I’ll link in the show notes.

Candice Wu 3:13

So here is Mary’s poem, Wild Geese: “You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile, the world goes on. Meanwhile, the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile, the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place in the family of things.”

Candice Wu 4:27

This is coming to me at a time where I’m noticing the next level of the subtle way in which I try to please people and I may make things sound prettier or try to make what I want to say, come out in a pretty way or in a way that is accessible to everybody, like I want everybody to like me, and it’s really not possible and by admitting that, it’s also admitting that there there are people that I don’t like or want to be around, not that I don’t respect them or maybe I don’t respect them, but it’s a reality that there are people we are attracted to and people we are not wanting to be near.

Candice Wu 5:14

And sometimes those are lessons to us that if we stay, we will learn something more or will discover something different. And other times it’s important to trust, what our body wisdom and what our intuition tells us about where we need to be and who we need to be around. And it gives us the freedom to not like everybody when we accept that not everyone likes us, and that’s okay.

Candice Wu 5:43

Well, of course, I logically know all that and there’s still parts of me that just have been conditioned over years and years and years, maybe even lifetimes and I see it in some people in my family system, in my ancestry, that act in certain ways so that others can like them.

Candice Wu 6:03

Particularly, I noticed that in my father that he can feel anxious and begin to make himself seem happy and charming to the world and make things sound nice and good. And yet, there’s a whole other part of him that he may be blocking off or denying or not acknowledging and feeling. And it seems hard for him at times to just settle into his body and be present without making everything feel good, and maybe a false good. And I want to just respect that right now because I think that’s part of what has made our family survive, and perhaps shows in ways how he survived his own experience and maybe people in my ancestry on his side of the family have survived life in general for different reasons.

Candice Wu 7:04

And what I mean is that, particularly with my father and mother, they both immigrated from Hong Kong to the United States when they were 17 and they met when they were 21. My mom’s English was not that great and my father’s was better. My father, in large part, became the interface between our family and America. So between his parents, and siblings, and the United States, because my grandparents didn’t speak English, and for my primary family, where he was the person that was out in the world, making more money and being an engineer, he did really well in terms of using his social skills, his language skills and making people feel good in a way like a salesperson, but someone that gives others confidence about his work and about what their projects are. He has succeeded so much at that.

Candice Wu 8:16

And like him and many other immigrant families, the generation that comes over to a new place, at least in those times where racism and being prejudiced and possibly hurt or imprisoned could be a reality and it still is possible now. It’s still happening in many places, including here, painfully so. But, when it was even more of a risk, that those people that made their journey into a new land had to learn to be like other people and to smile and to be what others wanted them to be to fit in and belong so that the family could survive.

Candice Wu 9:10

We may know that as a simulation and that experience can be passed down in the ancestry and I feel I’ve inherited some of that experience, where some part of me believes that I need to be a certain way and pleasing to others in order to fit in and belong and be accepted, be successful, be liked and of course, if you’ve been listening to the podcast, there are many ways that I’ve talked about my young life, my childhood experiences that also contribute to that. And tack on some past life experiences where I’ve been a witch and whipped and burned and my leg cut off, because of my gifts and the fears of other people about my gifts and having to do things to survive.

Candice Wu 10:07

So just looking at the ways in which I can still try to please people and how deeply that’s ingrained, and stepping into a next level of moving into a different paradigm, another paradigm where I’m just me, and there’s a deeper, fuller acceptance from within myself that asks less of other people around me to accept me in order to feel okay and I can hear it in my voice. You might hear it too, over time on the podcast that slowly happened. In the beginning, I was a little nervous and not sure how this was going to be received by myself and by other people. And over time, I’ve built more confidence and loving in myself that I accept myself more deeply.

Candice Wu 10:59

Luckily, I have a friend that went to grad school with me and she and I, we just meditate together, we tune in and sense what deeper beliefs are living in our experiences where we parallel each other, the themes that are coming up and what might be needed. And she said to me that there’s a way in which I share my work or do my work, especially like, in the way I present myself in the podcast or other things that are public that feel a bit heavy because I’m still trying to please everyone and be accessible to every single person, and the truth is that I’m just not.

Candice Wu 11:48

I am who I am, and what I share is not going to reach every person and that is okay, because if it touches who it needs to touch, then great and if I’m enjoying it that is truly what I want to drive my experience. If I’m deeply connected with what I’m doing, what I want, and as Mary Oliver says, just letting the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Candice Wu 12:24

What would your life be like if you did not have to be good or, you did not have to do something more, do something different, or hide something of yourself in order to be good enough, worthy, deserving, belonging?

Candice Wu 12:48

There’s a way that we can truly be at harmony in ourselves if we’re congruent from the inside out. And that lends itself to true harmony with each other, when there’s acceptance inside of who we are and what we are and all the things that are trying to come through us, then there’s a deeper acceptance of other people being in that freedom as well or there can be.

Candice Wu 13:24

How much of us are still in the way of being nice and polite or making peace and where the reality of that is actually deception, disingenuousness and not peace but keeping things underneath the surface, so that they just don’t show up, so that we protect ourselves?

Candice Wu 14:03

So yeah, I’m calling myself to the table on one hand, but calling myself to the table with more loving.

Candice Wu 14:13

How am I pleasing others still? Where am I doing that? What does it feel like in my body when I do that? What does it feel like when I’m just true to myself and say things just as they are, just as they want to come through? And what am I so afraid of if I actually just do that?

Candice Wu 14:39

Sometimes I afraid that my words will be too sharp, that I’ll come on too strong or I’ll be too much.

Candice Wu 14:49

There’s a dream worker I was working with and she offered the words: “You’re so much.” Instead of being too much or not enough you are so much, and I really liked that. And I think that’s true, and it’s a way to reframe it so that I can find this space that I can be more genuine and authentic to myself and to the world.

Candice Wu 15:20

So if I’m sharp, what’s going to happen? Someone’s not going to like me or like what I said, or someone will misunderstand me, these touch into all of my younger viewers, and it’s calling myself to the table to honor those and respect that way of being as a way that I’ve survived and as a way that has helped me in life and in past lives, and that is the way that has helped my ancestry and the people especially that came here to start a new life. And it’s safe now. It’s safe now to be myself and not do the pleasing as I did once before. It’s safe now that not everyone likes me, no one’s going to kill me, at least I hope. I mean that is still possible in the world, but not as likely.

Candice Wu 16:27

And if you look at yourself, are there ways that you are giving your energy away? Are there ways that you find that your power is outside of you in terms of needing someone else to validate you or give you something that you think is outside of you, some belonging and some worthiness or some love or achievement, rather than feeling deeper and cultivating your own power even more. And how do we do that? How do we embody that? It’s not just words, as this whole podcast is about. It’s about cultivating any sense of yourself that has felt like yourself.

Candice Wu 17:17

There are two experientials that I focus on that and one’s in the alignment podcast at Candicewu.com/ alignment. It’s resourcing a feeling and a way of being that you desire to be.

Candice Wu 17:34

And in the podcast at CandiceWu.com/overwhelm, where we tune into times that you felt like yourself, the more we can touch into those times and let our body feel aligned with them, resonate with them, and in that safety, the more that builds up, the more that our nervous system and body says, “Oh, I know how to do that and it’s safe to do that, and I can be in that space.”

Candice Wu 18:10

And also looking at the fears and releasing the fears. Releasing the beliefs that aren’t true.

Candice Wu 18:24

So here’s my self-forgiveness for today, and I’m just tuning into this now and seeing what words want to come through, it’s not prewritten this at all. So let’s tune in here together and you can also, if you want, tune into any beliefs or ways of being that you want self-forgiveness around and to release judgments around and let’s do that together.

Candice Wu 18:59

I forgive myself, for judging myself, for believing that I’m not good enough. I forgive myself, for judging myself, for believing that I need to be a certain way in order to be liked, loved, and accepted.

Candice Wu 19:24

I forgive myself, for judging myself, for believing that I need to say things in a nice way or else I’m selfish, rude or a bitch.

Candice Wu 19:47

I forgive myself, for judging myself, for believing that what I share needs to reach everybody and be accessible to everybody.

Candice Wu 20:11

So I’m just letting those move through my body. They’re not very intense right now and sometimes it means for me that I’m not hitting the right spot and sometimes it’s just, I’ve worked on it and it’s cleared through my body energetically and emotionally.

Candice Wu 20:28

So I just did that with you so that you could feel into my process a little bit. Sometimes the words are not, “I forgive myself for judging myself for believing”, but there, I forgive myself, for judging myself for forgetting and have a few there. I forgive myself for judging myself for forgetting that it’s safe to be me and that it’s safe to say things just as they are. That it’s safe to love just as I love.

Candice Wu 21:03

Thank you, Mary Oliver, and also thank you to Charmayne Kilcup who initially taught me the phrases around forgiveness of the judgments and she was taught by her teacher, Robert Waterman.

Candice Wu 21:22

You can also phrase things in terms of, I forgive myself, for judging myself, for all the times and places that I and fill in the blank, that I was not myself or that I pretended to be somebody else or that I sugar-coated and glossed what I wanted to say or changed what I had to say for someone else.

Candice Wu 21:48

Whatever those ways of being or that you would like to shine some light on, so it’s not that we’re changing our habits, even though that’s part of what I am doing, it’s not the pressure to change, it’s the forgiveness, that you have judgment around the way you’ve been, around the belief sets that you have, and have had. That’s what gives the safety for something different to arise, that’s what brings that belief set into the light and out of the unconscious place in us, that just lives it out, unknowingly. Or, lives that out because it hasn’t been looked at fully and embraced and taken into our hearts. Candice Wu 22:37

So when I do this forgiveness work, I stay with the feelings and allow them to move all the way through or work with the feelings and parts of me that show up. That’s for another podcast, but you can also tune into the Parts Work podcast if you want a little bit of support with working with parts. That’s @ CandiceWu.com/partswork.

Candice Wu 23:03

And let those emotions and energies move all the way through the system and that’s what creates a lasting change. That’s one way that I work with the body and the beliefs.

Candice Wu 23:19

So as I come back to Mary Oliver, you do not have to be good and you do not have to walk on your knees for 100 miles through the desert repenting. This is my favorite line: “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

Candice Wu 23:39

It’s so easy. It’s so simple. Love what you love, and that’s in terms of people, that’s in terms of your experience.

Candice Wu 23:53

So much of the time I can be clouded by what I feel I should do, what I feel or think I should do, what think I should do that usually comes from what I should do or what I have been doing, or what something in my ancestry tells me that I need to do or some way of protecting. But if we let these words sink into our bodies, in our hearts, you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. It’s like giving the deepest permission to be yourself and that’s exactly what I believe is needed in the world.

Candice Wu 24:33

There are all sorts of ways that things can be helpful. But when they’re really resonant with the energy of loving what one loves, we feel it, like, I can feel that in Mary Oliver’s poetry. There’s a deep resonance that vibrates through my resonance, which is like the universal energy that’s in all of us. It’s in you and me. It’s that remembering, coming back to the wholeness, and that wholeness can save lives, that wholeness can show someone else that there’s a way to just love what you love and be you, and that is incredible harmony. We won’t need war if we can just be ourselves.

Candice Wu 25:42

Sometimes they think about this in terms of horses and I think what would a horse do?

Candice Wu 25:49

If a horse doesn’t like being around this other horse, are they going to try to are they just going to find a distance that feels right for them? Are they going to find another horse to be around?

Candice Wu 26:02

Sure, there are ways that horses have trauma and could be resourced, could be led by other horses or people or other experiences to learn and heal and renegotiate that trauma. But by and large, what they do is they will be congruent with what they feel. What they feel they need, they will instinctually do without a thought. They don’t think about, oh, should I walk away or should I stay? They are just doing it.

Candice Wu 26:38

And while that’s not applicable in every situation, that’s something that we can feel into and use in our own energy.

Candice Wu 26:50

How can we make our lives simple and just love what we love?

Candice Wu 26:54

Do what we love to do and cut through the fears whatever ways that we think we should be and just shatter them to the ground.

Candice Wu 27:11

So I want to leave today’s podcast with the idea that we are not limited. We are just one possibility of the infinite amount of possibilities that we could be, the ways that we could be. And yet, there is a way that is so deeply aligned with who we are and so specifically eccentric to ourselves.

Candice Wu 27:40

In the podcast with Nick Werber recently, at CandiceWu.com/nickpart2, a friend of mine and fellow healer and integrative coach and constellations facilitator. He and I talked about being black sheep or not, and wherein our being is the black sheep. And those are the places where we feel like we don’t belong. And those are the parts that we can bring forward and that are really essential to who we are usually, and essential to us feeling whole.

Candice Wu 28:20

So while we are infinite possibility, I do believe that there’s a unique signature of who we are that wants to reveal itself and that can be a great relief because all we need to do is witness ourselves and as Mary Oliver says, “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

Candice Wu 28:52

Thanks for joining me today and may you love what you love.

Candice Wu 0:00

In this episode, we have Francesca Mason boring who is a facilitator of family constellation, systemic constellation and nature constellation. And she asks the simple question, “Who is in this family?” In this episode, she talks about the earthy kind of sacred, the kind of sacred you can dig your toes into, as well as the ability to know that it’s always present within us, and how we respect and bring the ancestors into our healing process.

Candice Wu 0:31

Hello, and welcome. You’re listening to the Embody Podcast, a show about remembering and embodying your true nature, inner wisdom, embodied healing, and self-love. My name is Candice Wu, and I’m a holistic healing facilitator, intuitive coach, and artist, sharing my personal journey of vulnerability, offering meditations and guided healing support, and having co-creative conversations with healers and wellness practitioners from all over the world.

Candice Wu 1:07

This episode is sponsored by My Workshops. If you’d like to get a taste of family constellations work, there’s a workshop coming up on July 21, 2019, in Chicago, in Pilsen. It’s called Restore the Flow of Love, and it’s perfect for this episode as you’ll get a taste of family constellations from Francesca’s perspective. And you can come and join in and have your own personal constellation setup or come in and represent for other’s constellations.

Candice Wu 1:39

So, whether it’s something related to your family life, your love life, career, the way you experience the world, your joy, your emotional world, anything under the sun, we can work with constellations to support what is the hidden dynamic underneath it all, that may be wanting to emerge that you can be in the flow of your love, the flow of your ancestry’s love, and the flow of your life. So, much of our dynamics connect with the hidden experiences of our ancestry or dynamics that were silenced, things that did not want to be looked at before, that are still living with us now. So, if there was something tragic, difficult, a loss that was hard, or something that just didn’t want to be looked at the time, that can be connected with you and your life now and affect anything in your life.

Candice Wu 2:35

So, constellations is a way to look at those in an embodied way. allow those to resolve in an organic way, and then bring you towards the flow of love that assures you into life, with so much more of yourself. You can find this workshop at CandiceWu.com/flowoflove. If this date has passed, you can check out CandiceWu.com/events for other workshops that are coming up, and you can always check in with Francesca’s website to check out her workshops. I encourage you to reach out to her if you’re interested in having a taste of nature, constellations, and the way that she works.

Candice Wu 3:13

Welcome back, everyone. It’s fantastic to have you here. Today, we’re just going to jump right into the episode with Francesca Mason Boring. I love this episode, because there’s such a sweetness to the way Francesca speaks about her work, the way that she speaks about herself and the world. There’s such respect and appreciation. And I also feel a great reminder of our innate knowing, as well as the ability to heal in such a simple way of connecting with where we came from, to know where we came from, to know our roots, as well as to know the roots through nature, to connect with nature in a way that brings us to our resource, brings us to our strength as well as back to where we came from.

Candice Wu 4:05

Francesca is an author, international facilitator, teacher and lecturer and she works with Universal Indigenous Fields, Family Constellation, and has supported the development of constellation as ceremony, as community constellations, and nature constellations. Francesca has also graciously offered a piece of her writing called Family Systems Constellation and the Legacy of the Natural World Supporting Resilience. This is a beautiful piece of writing. Here’s one quote from her, “We embody belonging when we feel the ground.”

Candice Wu 4:42

She also speaks about how we are visitors on earth, and that this magnificent sphere here was here long before human beings. In this, she offers a couple of different meditations that you can practice and use on your own and offers a perspective of how to see life, how to see the opportunity of being on earth. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/francesca. So, without further ado, here is Francesca Mason Boring.

Candice Wu 5:15

I’m just thrilled to invite you, Francesca Mason Boring to the show today. Thank you so much for being here and welcome.

Francesca Mason Boring 5:23

Thank you, Candice. It’s really wonderful to be able to hear your voice, and I appreciate your program and all the good things you’re selling on your website and learn more about you. Thank you.

Candice Wu 5:34

Thank you. Same to you, Francesca, I love looking at your website. And I was so honored to meet you, I think it was to about two years ago at the North American Systemic Constellation Conference, Workshop or retreat, and got the chance to work with you. And I’m so inspired by your work and just your presence. And you are doing all sorts of constellation work, especially work with ritual and ceremony, and nature. And I love to just invite you to share how you see yourself on your journey now and where you are.

Francesca Mason Boring 6:16

Wow. Well, I, first of all, I feel very fortunate, I feel like this is a remarkable time that we’re living in. It seems as though it’s a time where we have a lot of different kinds of technology. For instance, we’re able to have this conversation and share with other people that we may never be lucky enough to meet in person. But we can still share from our hearts and really connect. So, we have all of those levels that are happening, and at the same time, I think that there is this remembering, a bringing back and a recalling, and embodying again, a lot of different elements of what we sometimes refer to as wisdom traditions.

Francesca Mason Boring 7:06

So, having the good fortune to encounter, first, was usually presented as family systems constellation. And then it really started to blossom, and there was origination constellations, and it felt very natural, very important, that nature also be included, both acknowledging our relationship to nature, but also really looking at what nature provides us in terms of nurturing and resources, and actual support. So, there are so many different variations now of constellation work, but when I encountered that it seemed so similar to many different Native American and other indigenous ceremonies. And so, it was just a really natural emergence that one began to, to really appreciate that there was the very real experience for many people that looking at families, and looking at connectedness, and looking at all the love stories, all the sad stories, in our own family stems was actually sacred.

Francesca Mason Boring 8:20

And so. that inner knowing, really allowed for a very easy, very organic kind of incorporation with a lot of wisdom traditions that had been in that space for a really long time, with a lot of care, and being aware of some kinds of cautions and elements of respect, and asking for permission to step into those fields. So, yeah, I find myself feeling, first of all, really fortunate to be at this time when we have these technologies, the ability to travel, to see other communities and other cultures, but also to be at a juncture where many of the mechanistic modalities are saying, it’s so we bake the pie without any fruit in it, we left something out. And so, that was kind of going back and saying, “Oh, yeah, the old recipes call for this kind of this element.” You know, that really allows us to feel like we really are full and cared for and has something that has a history in it.

Candice Wu 9:33

Oh!

Francesca Mason Boring 9:35

So, yeah.

Candice Wu 9:36

Oh, I love that. Yeah. And you’re just reminding me, before I jumped on the conversation, I thought, how do we want to open this space with you, Francesca? And I felt like I wanted to invite you to do that as well, but I felt very strongly that I wanted to hold the space and invite you and all of your ancestors and nature, and your connections and relations to this conversation if they would like to be, and also mine. Is there a way that you want to honor that or open the space?

Francesca Mason Boring 10:15

Primarily, by saying “thank you”, I really feel like that is such a good way to encounter anyone, and I thank you very much for that. It really reminds me in just such a gentle way that one of the things that I hope will eventually emerge, when you named all of that, when you name nature and when you where saying ancestors, and that the warmth of an invitation, one of the things that I really think there’s hope, there’s something very concrete and beautiful in constellation work, because I have a hope that at some point as more and more people in social work and psychology, medicine, teaching people who are working with human beings, I have really a hope that one of the things that will come out of systems constellation and systemic thinking is that everyone will be able to make that internal gesture.

Francesca Mason Boring 11:23

So, not just the invitation, but also that the other side of that coin is really acknowledging this incredible capacity so that when I see someone, even if I see them as a client, even if I see someone that maybe my conditioning says that’s a wounded person, or we have different terms, fragile, or all of those things, if I really see someone in context, see them held by nature, see them held and supported and a result of thousands of generations of people who pass life on, then I think providers would be able to take a breath, because that horrible feeling of weight, and responsibility and all the concerns that come when we’re conditioned to believe that someone is diminished by their experience or their fragility or their diagnosis, I really hold a hope that that kind of invitation that you expressed, which I so love, that if everyone had that perspective, particularly people who work with folks, that there would be something so much easier and what they’re doing so much, they would feel so much more supportive and know that whoever they encounter is very much supported as well. So, yeah, thank you so much for that.

Candice Wu 12:49

Absolutely. Thank you, Francesca. That is huge. I feel that when you said that, that we could just take a breath, naturally, with that knowing with that acknowledgment and recognition. And I remember when I first started working with constellations that, especially as a facilitator, I was aware of that mental idea, like drawing upon the resource of the family system, honoring it, and holding the space for it. But really having that from the inside and believing it, and letting every part of me be congruent with that, was that breath! It was that acknowledgment that there’s so much wisdom here that I know nothing of, perhaps. Perhaps I do, but that there’s so much resource there, right? That doesn’t weigh on me to bring forward, right? Yeah.

Francesca Mason Boring 13:53

Well, and the other part of that, I think that one of the things that’s been kind of an outcropping of that is genuine ahh, really when I think of how many people it took for us to be here, just the being able to kind of dance with history and all the miracles, and all the tragedies, and all of the things that have happened, that so many people had to get something right for us to be here, that is, I mean, some people almost overuse it. But I think it’s the term awesome, really, to be just filled with ahh. It really strikes me in that way. And I think, maybe that’s part of the interface with the sacred but a very earthy kind of sacred, I mean, the kind of sacred that you can dig your toes into. It just is so earth-based and so real, and I just, I love that. I really love that.

Candice Wu 14:55

Um, it’s really beautiful. And so, for people here, Francesca today listening, that aren’t aware of constellations and nature constellation, and systemic constellation, what would you say about that today?

Francesca Mason Boring 15:10

It is so beautiful. It is the first thing that I would say, and that’s kind of…

Candice Wu 15:16

Yeah.

Francesca Mason Boring 15:17

….sounds almost right. But actually, it’s a very beautiful modality that, again, it mirrors, many different traditions, many different kinds of traditional wisdom. So, family constellation, the end result is that for many people, it increases the flow of love within a family system. So, it’s very concrete, the end result for a lot of people is that there really is a sense of transformation in how I actually view people in my family system, because since the work really looks at families in a systemic way, we’re actually looking at people in context. So, we’re looking at what happened for this person to be anxious? Or what happened for this person to be angry? Or for this person to be mean? And when we look, we’re really looking from a larger lens, we’re looking actually from many generations, what is the cumulative effect of something that happened in a previous generation.

Francesca Mason Boring 16:37

So, in systems constellation, we actually place representatives for different people in a family system. When there is an issue, we identify primary people in that system who interface with that issue. And then there is this really lovely knowing that emerges in the people who represent, it can also be if someone represents the people that are involved in a conflict or some history of a family being stuck financially or emotionally, or even having some kind of repetitive, dynamic with illness. It can also be that rather than human representatives, placing people, if a person is doing it privately, one-on-one, you can simply use felt squares or some other elements, something akin to what people use when they do sanctuary work, that you can use other kinds of images to basically, spatially represent different people who are involved in a particular issue or conflict.

Francesca Mason Boring 17:50

And then there is a knowing that emerges, and this knowing is very organic, it’s very solid, very transformative. And this knowing is not anything that’s unfamiliar to people. I often give the example that if you, for instance, think about someone, a good friend or a family member, and you suddenly have them very much on your mind, and the phone rings, and you pick it up, and that’s the person on the other end of the phone. Or if you are in a grocery store, and you suddenly turn because you sort of feel like you’re being watched in your eyes meet someone who is just looking at you out of curiosity.

Francesca Mason Boring 18:32

So, we have all of these ways that we really are familiar with this kind of knowing, connectedness, that there is some way that we really have information about people around us, about folks that we’re connected to people that we care about. But what’s lovely is people that don’t know anything about us or know our family, actually can represent very accurately what particular dynamics are within that family system. So, there is this element of knowing and then we’re able to see the phrase that you used earlier, what is? We’re able to see what is the difference between what I believe or what I’ve constructed, and what is actually, what’s actually true, what is?

Francesca Mason Boring 19:23

For many people, that’s the point where there is a huge transformation. If I have believed something about family members for a long time, if I have a very conditioned history of a particular kind of family propaganda, where people tell a story about someone that made life easier, but that wasn’t really based in the truth, then there are times that I really that sense, again, of being able to breathe. It says though, that ability to know, is always present. So, if we have something in our family system that is not actually true, we don’t have necessarily a conscious knowing of that incongruity, but very often we will embody it, we feel tense, or we feel uncomfortable. There’s something that doesn’t flow.

Francesca Mason Boring 20:18

So, with family systems constellation, it really is lovely and that many people that have worked really hard, both providers and clients, who have worked really hard to try to unfold or unravel some point of confusion, all of those kind of cognitive methods, if they have sort of reached a dead end, and everyone is exhausted, then there’s something about this modality or this movement method, some people call it even a philosophy, this way of being able to see what is the hidden dynamic? What is it that we sort of have known in our body, but we were not able to conceptualize? And when that’s revealed in a constellation, for many people, it is incredibly transformative. It just is really lovely.

Francesca Mason Boring 21:14

And then, of course, it’s exciting that there are so many other disciplines that are emerging and understandings that are emerging right now, that again, somewhat market to those wisdom traditions. So, we have things like Quantum Physics and people who discuss and really investigate epigenetics, where we look at how is it that particular traumas in a family system, even activate genes that make us vulnerable to particular illnesses, and there are just so many places, morphogenetic fields that Rupert Sheldrake talks about. We’re really looking and seeing that there is this kind of connection that we have, that we have always had as human beings, that actually gives us access to a kind of healing, that doesn’t just come from being able to resolve things in a linear way.

Francesca Mason Boring 22:17

So. I don’t know if that’s the best description, I’m just so excited about how expansive and inclusive, and simple it is, that it really looks at who is in this family? And it says though, the family is so connected that one of the terms that folks use that that were a part of the family soul, that there really is this soul that says all of you are a part, all of you are a part of this family. And it doesn’t preclude or exclude, that people can have a variety of stories, that someone can have been adopted and loved, and cared for by someone else, other than their biological family, but the truth of the survival of this particular lineage is something that really does carry, apparently quite a bit with it in terms of field dynamics, biologically, emotionally, historically.

Francesca Mason Boring 23:21

So, this work actually looks at that, and particularly in the United States, when countries have immigration, when people are so separated because of the trauma of immigration or forced migration. When people are so separated from their lineage, this work really brings a sense of relief, and a remembering that everyone does come from someone, we really do have roots.

Candice Wu 23:49

It’s just such a sweet and appreciative practice, and even these simple words, we all do come from someone. It’s so loving, it just love. I love that you spoke about how simple it is, and who is here, who is in this family and who belongs here. And that makes so much sense that nature was calling you to just bring it into the fold, because it already is.

Francesca Mason Boring 24:26

Yeah.

Candice Wu 24:27

And yeah, and how does that, how do you see that showing up? Or when does it come in?

Francesca Mason Boring 24:34

Right. It shows up in so many ways. One of the things that I think is helpful is for me, and I think for a lot of people, it’s always been a source of information. So, in nature, for instance, there are animals in every species of nature, who, for whatever reason, may have the capacity to have a baby, but really do not have the impulse to take care of that infant or that newborn. And so, there are in lots of places in nature, the event where another animal who perhaps has had a child die, a foal die, or calf die, they actually will take care of someone else’s when that mother is, has died, or is not able.

Francesca Mason Boring 25:41

And so, when I would look at that, I would see that there’s no judgment involved. It really is. That’s what happens sometimes in nature, I think the same thing is true with human beings, that there are things that happen sometimes with people. And we have this element of judgment that does create this kind of secrecy or exclusion, or shame. But when we look at nature, there are so many things that just happen, and nature takes care of it, and so when it’s taken care of, it’s done. And there’s not all of the stigma or the paralysis that some people experience. So, one of the things I think that I find this a beautiful teacher is that the crippling element of judgment or shame is not embodied in many aspects of nature in the same way than it is with humankind. And so, I think that there’s a lot to learn by seeing that teacher, just that openness and that honoring life.

Francesca Mason Boring 26:52

And the other part is that, I think, perhaps informed by different indigenous traditions, I really do see nature as viable and interactive, and personal. So, it’s exciting that now, there are so many teachings that are also emerging in botany and other fields of biology, that really do point to this awareness, the trees talking with each other and interfacing with each other, even if it’s a biochemical conversation, rather than verbal conversation, that they actually are responding to each other and in contact. And I think that many indigenous traditions have this awareness of the capacity of nature to heal, not just in the aspect of many herbal practitioners who historically were in conversation with plants to see what would be helpful, but also the kind of like, and I can remember if it was Japanese, perhaps where they talk about tree bathing or nature bathing, saying that our bodies really respond differently when we are open to this kind of interface with nature.

Francesca Mason Boring 28:15

So, what’s lovely is in systems constellation, you’re able to actually introduce representatives for different elements of nature. So, if there is someone who has been severely traumatized, I remember one of the most touching experiences I ever had was someone who had really had so many horrific events in their lifetime, that I’ve seen some really masterful facilitators, they, this is too big for me. And, in fact, sometimes that’s what’s true. And somehow, there was this massive tree that came to my mind, and it was a tree that does exist, and it has been burned, it has been flooded, someone attempted to chop it down. Some folks may be aware of that tree, it’s on the coast, the western coast of the United States, but it just had been through so much, and it still has green coming out of it.

Francesca Mason Boring 29:22

So, in the constellation, we just placed a representative for this man and a representative for that tree. And that was the most heartful healing exchange, I think I’ve ever seen in my life, that this tree that has lived hundreds of years, has complete empathy, complete understanding, and could really teach something about resilience in a way that very few human beings could do. So, I think there are times that you can actually invite some element of nature into the family system or into the person’s own personal dynamic. And there’s just a capacity that is no human being lives several hundred years, but a tree can. So, yeah.

Candice Wu 30:15

I feel that now. I feel like the warmth and I almost feel sorrow, hearing that story. And I think we do, there’s something in us that knows that, you know, if we’re not having these experiences that really show us directly. In this way, there are other experiences where we feel that way, we feel some connection, and I love this. I don’t know how to describe it exactly. But just inviting this to be held in the space together, this man and this tree, there’s a bigger acknowledgment that allows a deeper, heartfelt experience, a deeper feeling, and the whole system, then the saying yes, nature has something to teach us. But to actually feel into it, and invite it like this, and that this happened. It’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing this story.

Francesca Mason Boring 31:18

Yeah, I felt so grateful, so grateful.

Candice Wu 31:22

It’s amazing. Oh, well, so Francesca, where are you now in your journey for yourself? And how constellations work has supported you or in your own walk?

Francesca Mason Boring 31:39

So beautiful. I feel really excited, I’m teaching a facilitator training, and have been doing those for some time, they’re 21 days, and it’s really wonderful that many of the people who have a really serious interest in being able to incorporate this into their work, whether they be teachers or even engineers, or people that are involved in architecture, or people that have a background in Shamanism, or psychotherapy or medicine of many, many different aspects, massage therapy, there are more and more people who are really wanting to be able to integrate constellation work into their own practice and into their own discipline.

Francesca Mason Boring 32:35

So, I feel very happy to be giving a training in Maryland. It’s just wonderful, the people that have come together, and then next year, I’ll give a training in Los Angeles. And it’s just a really exciting thing to know that each of the people who participate in that training, will be able to introduce family systems constellation and systemic thinking in a way that I never could, They’ll interface with people that I would never be able to share with or encounter. So, it really is expanding the reach of the work.

Francesca Mason Boring 33:14

I just finished a small book on family systems constellation. And it’s in the company of good people, and it’s just a small book, but part of my journey is that writing is something that really helps me to be able to integrate, and to be able to try to understand what I’m learning, what people are teaching me, what the work is teaching me. So, that book just came out, maybe a month or so ago, and that made me really happy. They always take their own time to come into the world, but that’s done, and it’s very sweet. I just sometimes books turn out to be something very different than what I expected. And I look at it and think, where did you come from?

Francesca Mason Boring 34:09

With this way, it’s just something really, really sweet. So, I felt really happy about that.

Candice Wu 34:15

Congratulations! It’s…

Francesca Mason Boring 34:18

Thank you.

Candice Wu 34:18

I saw that, it looks beautiful. And…

Francesca Mason Boring 34:20

Thank you so much.

Candice Wu 34:21

…..it does look very sweet.

Francesca Mason Boring 34:23

Yeah, it’s just a really, really nice feeling. But I think that one of the things, the primary seed was that I realized that many of the people who began family constellation work, predominantly folks from Germany and Europe, originally. But I realized how many of those people had been in long term partnerships. And also, how many of those people had been, dear friends, almost all in excess of 30 years. So, I thought this was a really a very unusual greenhouse. That folks that began this work were so committed to the difference that the depth, which with people could feel connectedness, to the people that they cared for.

Francesca Mason Boring 35:18

And I, as I was just kind of doing a meditation, one day, I realized that that greenhouse or that shared ability, that shared capacity for love and connection, not that they never had any conflicts, I’m sure, but just the ability for such a large group of people to really have this history and this capacity for connection is, I think, perhaps in large part, what really fostered their commitment, when they saw the way that this work could open doors for people and open hearts. They really, viscerally knew what can come from that. And so, that was kind of the springboard for the little book, but it just really came out of acknowledging the love that shows up, and that blossoms out of constellation work is just so expansive. But when I realized that the love between all of those people originally was in large part, part of the story of the gestation of that, that seed, I thought, this is really, I just want at least to say that I could see that.

Candice Wu 36:40

Mmmm.

Francesca Mason Boring 36:42

So sweet.

Candice Wu 36:43

I didn’t know that. Thank you for sharing that.

Francesca Mason Boring 36:45

Yeah, so sweet.

Candice Wu 36:46

Such a beautiful story. Yeah. Beautiful, knowing about all of those, all of the people that were that convicted in this depth of work.

Francesca Mason Boring 36:56

And then I think that the other part into terms of what’s happening is that I give workshops and a number of places, my focus, much of the time tends to be trainings, but I occasionally give workshops. And there again, I can see that the expanse, the variety of the disciplines of people who are interested in how this work can inform them and support them. Because I think that’s, I think many people who do really great work with other human beings are tired, they’re so exhausted, they’re so hurt, I guess you could say, by the inability for their toolkit to intervene in the way that their heart knows, is possible.

Francesca Mason Boring 37:59

And so, to have this wider prospect, that actually does seem to clear a lot of wounding that other modalities have not been able to clear for many is really heartening. And it also lightens their load, so that when folks realize how much support they have, and when they’re able to connect again with that and connect again with their own family and their own story, their own roots. It’s very strengthening. So, they, again, are reminded that they’re not alone, whatever they’re doing in the world, they do have support, they do have a lot of this huge legacy of other folks in their system who were able to really press on, make the grade, laugh. Because I think that’s one of the things that I enjoy, that for many people, there’s a kind of a lightness that is different than what they’ve been able to experience people. So, yeah, I feel really lucky.

Candice Wu 39:18

Yes, yes, me too. I feel that as you’re speaking it to, with people that I work with, that are experiencing it, and as you’re talking, I thought of something that was on your website. And it’s this, it says on your website, “Although Family Constellation may be therapeutic, this indigenous woman does not present it as therapy.” and that you described this method as one of the most profoundly beautiful healing paths that can be taken. And this work for you is the extension, an extension of ceremony, a road of indigenous healing. And somehow, as you’re speaking, this quote of yours came up in me and it kind of clicked, at least for me, I’m not sure if this is how you would represent it. But as you’re speaking about sharing this work, and how powerful it can be for anyone in any trade, who is doing something out there in the world, and being in community, being in family, or being in work, systems, that this work isn’t limited to the idea of therapy and healing, necessarily, that it can spread out into their lives as something so, is a way of being that supports them and the world around them.

Francesca Mason Boring 40:48

Absolutely. Well, and I think that one of the things, the integration, or the personification of that, as you so often referred to embodiment, and so, I love that so much because I think that that’s what fundamentally changes for so many people, that their sense of belonging and their sense of connectedness becomes really very embodied. So, in fact, they truly are transformed, they really do have just been physically, their presentation, I guess you would say, of being someone who belongs can be really quite visible.

Francesca Mason Boring 41:37

And so, that really has amazed me, what has amazed me is how much people can embody, what transforms in terms of their definition of who they are, and where they come from, and how much they represent resilience and capacity. And that is just so different, because we have so many modalities that are focused on pathology. And this really is looking at capacity. And so, when people are doing a constellation, they’re not looking at what is my disability, but rather, what is my capacity, and what are all the abilities of all of these people who came before me, that allowed this to happen. So, there really is a difference in that way.

Francesca Mason Boring 42:33

And the other part of it is that I feel really fortunate in that many of the workshops that I’ve given, I began in a very rural community. And so, the nature of the community really is such that people who were farmers or truck drivers, or teachers, or doctors, or single moms, a really wide variety of different backgrounds could come and really have the same depth of experience. So, one of the reasons I become so excited when many more people become interested in this work is that it really will continue to expand who has access to this. And I have really a strong sense that when it becomes part of everyone’s language, and every practitioner or caregiver or human service worker, or teacher or foster parent, when everyone has access to this, then…

Candice Wu 43:42

Absolutely.

Francesca Mason Boring 43:43

….then I think that’s going to be incredible. And that’s my hope. I don’t think it hurts to really dream big. But I do have the hope that that would happen.

Candice Wu 43:52

It’s a lovely dream.

Francesca Mason Boring 43:53

Yeah.

Candice Wu 43:54

It’s a beautiful dream.

Francesca Mason Boring 43:55

Yeah, I hope that it happens.

Candice Wu 43:58

Me, too.

Francesca Mason Boring 43:59

Me, too.

Francesca Mason Boring 44:02

That’s encouraging.

Francesca Mason Boring 44:04

That’s encouraging.

Candice Wu 44:05

Yeah, well, and it’s seeing ourselves with that capacity and the expanse of who we are beyond this body and being, beyond the lineage even, beyond what we can see. And when you spoke about the shaming and judgment that we place upon ourselves, that nature doesn’t, there, that really brings it to the forefront, that if we are in this way of being and way of walking in the world, and seeing, then how could we, how could we have sham?. And I also acknowledge that we could, but there’s something so pure about what the truth is underneath it, right? That there’s so much there, resilience and just being in who we are.

Francesca Mason Boring 44:54

That is so beautiful, and I think that’s perhaps the transformation that when we do walk outside in the trees, you can really have a sense that there is no judgment. And people began to really conceptualize and embody that sense of being a part of ancestry and having ancestors, then there’s also this perception that really, at that juncture, all that’s left is love, and we represent the survival of so many. And so, there really is no space where there would be judgment, it’s rather just this deep breath and this, that in some ways, we are the reward of everything that they endured, everything that they lived through, or lived with.

Francesca Mason Boring 45:54

And so, one of the things that seems to be really remarkable is that there is something about this multiple generations and being able to really include and to look at this expanse of lineage that really does bring to the fore, this sense that as far back as our lineage goes, there’s love that flows to us. And so, whether it’s a metaphor or whether it’s someone’s reality, it really does seem to have a transformative effect and seems to be something that people embody, when they’ve experienced a family constellation. So, it’s really, it’s really hopeful.

Candice Wu 46:45

It’s really powerful and its, that’s very expansive.

Francesca Mason Boring 46:50

So nice.

Candice Wu 46:51

Thank you. Yeah. And so in your personal journey, what are you tussling with? What are you feeling the learning about? Right now, I just recently had an experience with someone very close to me, that I could feel the convergence of our lineages coming together, through us. And, like white European family background, on the other side of me, and my Chinese American, having immigrated, my parents having immigrated, and there was this feeling of, can you hold my complexity, and it felt so ancestral related that my family came here to America, and wondered that and perhaps was wounded in a lot of ways or felt fear about that. And that was a great healing for me, where I converged with this person. And so, that’s alive in me now. And it’s so fitting, we’re having this conversation. So, I just wondered, if you would be open to sharing anything that you’re looking at.

Francesca Mason Boring 48:11

So beautiful. Well, I think that the conversation that you just spoke to, is definitely something that comes up in family constellation, and of course, it’s a part of my life. I have a very multicultural family. And so, in many respects seeing how others may be challenged in navigating that, is something that I’ve, perhaps that has always been one of my interests, because my mother is Shoshone, which is a Native American tribe and native speaker, and her family has been very involved in particularly historical aspects of tribe and still have a lot of different awareness of tribal practices and things like this. And I have a very large family. So, I’m one of seven children, my mother was one of 10 children. So, on that side of the family, there are quite a few people that I have as relatives.

Francesca Mason Boring 49:18

And then my father is Caucasian, and is descendant of immigrants from Lithuania, and also from Scotland and Ireland. So, the cultural differences were really extreme. But it was wonderful, because I could see that we really don’t all grow up with the same fairy tales. So, from very early on, I feel fortunate, and each of my parents, perhaps, because they were culturally so different, most of their friends were also bicultural. So, my growing up was kind of nurtured by this beautiful puzzle of seeing how different cultures could be and their beliefs and their practices. And so, always having really a care and caution to see what is permitted here, what is allowed here, what is comfortable for people here, because it can differ so much from place to place.

Francesca Mason Boring 50:28

So, I think that that’s, when you speak to that I can’t help but have a very strong resonance because that expansion of cultures has continued to expand and my family, so, we have, when I describe it, it just is it’s interesting learning. So, that we’re all careful of all of the different traditions of each of these people that come into our family.

Francesca Mason Boring 50:53

And for me, personally, my challenge in the moment has been that I really have had this very strong sense that I need to become comfortable or more aware of technology. And it’s actually very deep and very personal. I had a dear friend and coordinator, and colleague, Anatosh Fu, who was a facilitator, and she died last May. But we traveled for many years together, and she really saw an expanse in this work and also held this vision that in a perfect world, this will be accessible, easily accessible to everyone at some point. And so, literally on her deathbed, what she said was, “You have to get used to your cell phone, and you have to become friends with technology.” Literally, when people thought she does not have another breath left in her body, that was her last teaching for me. So…

Candice Wu 52:07

Fo you. Oh, my goodness.

Francesca Mason Boring 52:09

So I really…

Candice Wu 52:11

That was an important message.

Francesca Mason Boring 52:11

Yeah. So, I really held that, and then of all things this past winter, I did a really wonderful, I had a wonderful invitation from the Shift Network and did a Zoom conference, and had another lovely invitation from a woman by the name of Towel Shy, who has this wonderful soul movement. And again, that is Zoom, and now here we are on this podcast. And so, I’m really committed to learning all of these things that actually will make constellation work more available, more accessible, more known for as many people as possible. And so, it’s really a wonderful challenge, and it’s funny, I mean, I can’t help but a lot of times end up laughing because there are just so many different things involved. And I actually, it’s interesting, because I am trying to equate it with the complexity of nature, that really, nature is very complex. But when we really hold it just in its expanse, then it seems very contained.

Francesca Mason Boring 53:35

So, I’m trying to find a way that I can get my computer and this Zencastr and podcast, and Zoom and these different things that plug-in there and don’t plug-in here. I’m trying to see like, how do I hold them all in a way? You know that nature is. How do I begin to experience it, you know, as an organism or as energy? I think that that’s the thing that I’m really trying to find like how, how do I come to the place where I can say, you know, really this as everything and anything else is in service? And so how do I have? I think I’m trying to befriend it. But I’m waiting for the reciprocity where I have this actual visceral sense that it’s also embracing me.

Candice Wu 54:36

Yeah, yeah.

Francesca Mason Boring 54:37

So, that, you know, so that’s my challenge, and it’s, it’s really wonderful. I’ve just discovered people as teachers, that I would not have perceived as being that patient or specific. It’s been really a big challenge and adventure. And it is, I think, it happens in life a lot of times that there’s someplace where there’s an open door. And so, does one just look at it, or how do we navigate it? Do we go in the door with someone else? So I’m just kind of negotiating that and seeing that somehow this has become part of my journey, and it’s so unlikely. But…

Candice Wu 55:29

Wow!

Francesca Mason Boring 55:30

….but such an adventure.

Candice Wu 55:31

Yeah, and you’re here.

Francesca Mason Boring 55:33

Yeah.

Candice Wu 55:33

Yeah. True, true confessions into context. Yeah, and I just had this dream that, is there a constellation waiting for you with technology being representative?

Francesca Mason Boring 55:48

You know, I really, I could see that, and I could also see that there’s this loving element to it. Because the end result and the encounters that I’m having are a surprise, really just a beautiful, transformative surprise. So, what that means in terms of my own capacity, I don’t know, but just this the sense of it, the experience of it is really unexpected. Unexpected because I was just really so in the dark, but little by little, so yeah, it’s interesting that it could be such a challenge.

Candice Wu 56:33

Beautiful. I don’t think you’re alone in that challenge. I think that’s, but to give it that honoring is really something.

Francesca Mason Boring 56:43

Yeah, yeah.

Candice Wu 56:45

Thank you.

Candice Wu 56:46

So beautiful.

Candice Wu 56:49

Well, we’re coming to the end.

Francesca Mason Boring 56:52

Yeah, I feel really good.

Candice Wu 56:54

Yeah. You feel really good?

Francesca Mason Boring 56:56

Yeah, that we actually did…

Candice Wu 56:58

I, me, too.

Francesca Mason Boring 57:00

So really so sweet.

Candice Wu 57:02

Me, too.

Francesca Mason Boring 57:03

So sweet.

Candice Wu 57:04

It is, I…

Francesca Mason Boring 57:05

Thank you so much.

Candice Wu 57:06

…so enjoyed this conversation and hearing your voice and hearing your wisdom come through. And there’s a resonance that when you said, energetic, that technology is energetic, I feel that and I also feel the transmission of your energy across the vessel of technology here. And I’m so glad, I thank you for sharing with me and with everyone that’s listening in going to be listening here. It’s such a gift.

Francesca Mason Boring 57:38

Well, thank you so much. And actually, I’m gonna really hold that word vessel because I think that’s, that is so helpful, because the work and the technology, the way that we’re moving in life, it really is like some kind of vessel like a big canoe or boat that somehow is really taking us in this really beautiful stream that holds us. And because I do think that nature is alive and conscious, I think that the water that’s carrying us is carrying us well, with good intention, and a lot of love.

Candice Wu 58:23

Thank you for that.

Francesca Mason Boring 58:24

Thank you, Candice.

Candice Wu 58:26

Oh, you’re so welcome, and is there anything else you want to share today before we close?

Francesca Mason Boring 58:32

Oh, just thanks and gratitude for your work. And yeah, just the hope of eventually, everyone is able to experience family systems constellation or one of the many beautiful applications of constellation work. It’s becoming more and more accessible, and I think when folks just google family constellation, there are lots of places where you can find workshops or groups of club center coming together exploring. And now, there are so many wonderful books, I really appreciate how many books are available, and I love reading. There are just a lot of beautiful books.

Francesca Mason Boring 59:16

So, if I maybe could leave people with, I mean, definitely my books, you can just put Francesca Mason Boring, and go to Amazon, and there’s a list of books but there are a couple of other books that I think there are so many. But there’s one that I think is really lovely, that sort of holds the essence, and it’s a book by Bert Hellinger, and it’s called No Waves without the Ocean. And I think there are so many, that if I were just to say which ones have I loved, I really could talk for a long time. But in terms of self, that really has the essence and it’s just a lovely, lovely book. No Waves without the Ocean by Bert Hellinger is really, really beautiful. So, that might be something.

Candice Wu 1:00:13

That’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing. Yeah. And where can people find you and your workshops? And you mentioned your books on Amazon, but I think they’re also connected on your website?

Francesca Mason Boring 1:00:26

Yes, yes, yeah. And it’s just AllMyRelationsConstellations.com, and relations and constellations are both plural. So, it’s just AllMyRelationsConstellations.com. And there, I have my workshops. There are also some nice resources for people. There’s a place where folks can get books that are about constellation work, not just mine, but books about constellation work. And then there’s a really nice link that actually is great for people in the US who may have family overseas, there’s a link to something that’s called Talent Manager.

Francesca Mason Boring 1:01:13

And that’s something that a gentleman has just given as a gift. He’s been kind of pulling this together for many years, and there are links for many countries in the world that tell you where you may be able to find a facilitator of family constellation. So, that’s one of the links that’s also provided on my website.

Candice Wu 1:01:38

Wonderful.

Francesca Mason Boring 1:01:39

So, that if someone has been to a constellation and they have family in Spain, or they have family in Mexico, they can pop that up and see who might be there for the rest of their family or friends that they have that are in other countries.

Candice Wu 1:01:54

Beautiful. What a good resource.

Francesca Mason Boring 1:01:56

Yeah. So nice. And keeps growing. So, that’s really beautiful.

Candice Wu 1:02:02

Yeah. Wonderful, Francesca, thank you so much. I’m just in deep gratitude of you sharing and being here today and being out in the world and walking the way you do. Thank you so much.

Francesca Mason Boring 1:02:18

Thank you, Candice, this is really been a joy. And thank you for your support in helping me navigate just the mechanics of being able to have this exchange. My heart has really felt good about the time that we got to have.

Candice Wu 1:02:35

Wonderful.

Francesca Mason Boring 1:02:36

So, Thank you.

Candice Wu 1:02:37

Thank you.

Candice Wu 1:02:40

It’s been such a pleasure to have Francesca on the show. I just loved talking with her and hope that you enjoyed listening just as much. Tune in to, check out her meditations that she’s offered in her piece of writing of family constellation and the legacy of the natural world supporting resilience. You can find that PDF file on the website at CandiceWu.com/francesca.

Candice Wu 1:03:06

So, as we close today, I just like to end with the idea that the ability to know is always present. This is Francesca’s quote, and it’s just so poignant because there are so many different ways of knowing, it’s not just a mental knowing that we’re after. We want to know who we are in our bodies, want to know the next step of our lives. We want to know what’s happened inside of ourselves when we feel a certain emotion, and this reminder that the ability to know is always present is so powerful because, with love, gentleness, and patience, we can see what’s there for us, we can receive the answers from within.

Candice Wu 1:03:51

Thank you so much for joining us today. It’s been such a pleasure. If you’d like to connect in with other podcasts or other guests, and experientials and meditations, you can find all that at CandiceWu.com/podcast. And you can also sign up for the bi-monthly newsletter where you’ll get updates about the podcast, updates about events, also, my travels and self-love notes. Find that at CandiceWu.com/embody.

Candice Wu 1:04:22

It’s been great to have you today, and I look forward to seeing you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

I’m so excited to share with you my recent experiences dancing with horses, meditating with them at liberty, and doing Horse Constellations with them while living right next door to them in a small box in the mountains in California.

Candice Wu 0:17

This was a five-night mentorship experience for Horse Constellations and being with horses with Sara Fancy.

Candice Wu 0:25

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 0:39

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 1:00

Welcome back, everyone, or welcome for the first time, if you’re just joining in. It’s really great to have you here and to connect with you. I’m thrilled to share this experience with you, of being with the horses. I had such an amazing experience. And it was pretty life-altering in terms of how I can connect with horses. I felt like there was a piece missing in terms of how I was learning to be with horses. And it is that spiritual piece of how do I really connect with them and be in collaboration with them.

Candice Wu 1:34

So before we jump into that, I do want to share that I have a couple of workshops coming up. There’s still a little room for my Michigan workshop that’s called Being in your Beauty. And that’s a Family Constellations, Somatic Experiencing, and Self-Forgiveness workshop. It’s on June 15, 2019. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/bebeauty.

Candice Wu 1:56

And I also have another one coming up July 21st in Chicago at the Darshan Center, where I trained with Jim Kulackoski in Advanced Yoga and Ayurveda. And it’s a wonderful space, beautiful space. And it’s a Family Constellations workshop. So I invite you to join us if you’re interested, intrigued, want to have your personal constellation set up, it’s an amazing experience to do it with a group because there’s just so much resource where others can represent the parts of your family system or the parts of the thing you want to look at. It doesn’t have to relate to family, can be career, love life, your experience in nature, any issue that’s going on with your life-body, challenges that you’re experiencing.

Candice Wu 2:51

All of that can be set up in a Constellation. And as we look at it, it unfolds as to what the underlying dynamics are. And it often has this overlay or imprint of something that’s happened in the family ancestry with those that can be for you.

Candice Wu 3:07

So in a family system, we have experiences that are really hard, hard to bear, devastating, even tragic, those experiences, if not integrated fully, celebrated for the beauty, and felt for the pain, and whatever movements need to happen, whatever feeling needs to move through, if that isn’t integrated, then it will want to be seen later in the ancestry. So we inherit those experiences.

Candice Wu 3:41

And it’s so interesting because we don’t know what’s happened sometimes. And most of the time those things are silenced or kept behind closed doors, or not talked about. And that’s the very reason that they start to build up a weight in the family system, in the soul of the family system, and then they appear later in the generations that we are living in and in future generations as well.

Candice Wu 4:10

So we can heal the ancestry through us by looking at what is inherited by us. What is the dynamic that we are living out that may be a repeat or connected with something that was extremely painful in the past that we’re reliving now?

Candice Wu 4:29

So you can find that workshop at CandiceWu.com/flowoflove. The workshop is called Restore the Flow of Love. You can find all the workshops at CandiceWu.com/events.

Candice Wu 4:43

It’s really touching to see that some people are reaching out to me from out of state and wanting to make the travel over to be in the workshop. I think it’s worth it. If you’re really interested and want to do that work and you feel drawn to it. So, yeah, excited to have all of you that are joining me.

Candice Wu 5:11

So I spent the last five nights with Sara Fancy at her ranch in Ranchita, California and her seven horses. It was beautiful. And every night I saw the sun go down with these gorgeous colors and the layers of mountains in the background. And I slept in a small room that was, I don’t know, really bad with measuring square footage. But my guess is it was like 12 by 24 feet inside, pretty decent size. Actually, for me, I loved it. And my window opened right to the horses where they were sleeping or rubbing their butts against the fence next to me. And there was a sweet cat Tinkerbell that slept outside and just purred all night, lullabying me to sleep. I took baths outside, there was a bathtub right set into the rocks and nature, the hills that were more on the back of her property and just experience such a simple life.

Candice Wu 6:26

It gave me the experience that I could do this. I could live in a tiny home. I could live in the mountains. I could be out here in nature with horses, and it feels like me.

Candice Wu 6:38

If you ever had that kind of experience where you were in a place, you’re inexperienced, and something resonated so much in you that you felt like “Wow! This is me. This is bringing out something in me that I have forgotten.”

Candice Wu 6:56

That’s what it felt like for me and it felt like that I’m on multiple levels. It wasn’t just the lifestyle, the simplicity, the being in nature and the outdoors as my living room. But it was also in the way that I learned to communicate and connect with the horses.

Candice Wu 7:13

Sara Fancy is a woman who has gone through so many iterations of her passions. She was a musician for a while. She also was a bodybuilder. And then she learned that she was in love with horses and began working with them in all sorts of healing capacities for the horses as well as people.

Candice Wu 7:35

She developed something called a Kind Rodeo, which is a rodeo experience. That’s not like one we know. So she was seeing rodeos around the world and just hating how they were abusing horses at times or hurting them or pressuring them to do things that they probably didn’t want to be doing but they were groomed and trained to be doing.

Candice Wu 7:59

She didn’t like that it was such a toxic masculine and patriarchal energy of dominating horses and using them for human’s pleasure and entertainment. So she developed the Kind Rodeo to show people that we can connect with horses where they can be free. And we can communicate with them mutually. And we can dance with them and play, perhaps do theater. And so she put on these experiences where you could see and experience that for yourself.

Candice Wu 8:34

So this is nothing like anything I’ve experienced as I’ve been learning to ride or doing horsemanship, even natural horsemanship, and being with horses in Ireland. This is taking it to another level for me, which is exactly what I was looking for.

Candice Wu 8:52

I had felt in me, this knowing that we can connect with horses in a really beautiful and collaborative way. But I just got all confused by the many messages that I was receiving and the teachings that I had received, which all were important, and I think where an essential part of me getting to here and now.

Candice Wu 9:13

But today I want to share some of the wisdom that I’ve received. And what I experienced while I was working with these horses and with Sara.

Candice Wu 9:23

One of the biggest shifts in my approach with horses now is to invite them in to engage with me, rather than pressuring them, or demanding of them, or dominating them and forcing them to do so. And so that showed up in ways of just being in their space with them. And being in an openness to receive in myself, but feeling fully in my body. And sometimes talking to them in my mind telepathically like saying, “You know, do you want to connect with me?” and listening.

Candice Wu 10:03

And sure enough, as I would do that is I would be in the space with them. They had this larger arena with trees and rocks in it and flatland. When I was in that space with them, someone would come near me, one of the horses would come near me. And my first connection with them was to find a way to touch them in a way that they liked.

Candice Wu 10:29

They love to be scratched or groomed, if it’s a good touch, if it’s loving, and if it’s connected with what they desire. They really love having their backs or butts scratched because they can’t reach those areas. And that’s how they mutually groom and love each other.

Candice Wu 10:49

So I found that with all of my Yoga training and energy work, and also Somatic Touch training, and experience that I was really good at that. And I just loved watching each horse show me “Yeah, that spot” or give me a little poke with a head like, “Yeah, yep, you got it.” Or they would even nibble my back at the same time showing me that they liked it and they were in that mutual grooming space.

Candice Wu 11:24

And other times where they would move away a little bit. And I’ve noticed, “Oh, there’s something about that touch they didn’t like, or that spot they didn’t like.” And to listen to their body language, listen to the energy that they’re showing me to inform my next move and to not push them farther than where they want to go in a way that doesn’t feel good.

Candice Wu 11:46

So working with horses at liberty, and in this way of not demanding or putting pressure on them, but giving them a space to enter freely, it’s amazing. They want it too. And I know these horses were really accustomed to that and also feeling safe enough to do that. It would take some time for some horses who are perhaps traumatized or who had been hurt to get to that place. But it was so much fun.

Candice Wu 12:15

I noticed that when I asked for too much, or when I felt like, “Oh, why are they coming over to me? or ”I want them to,” they would stay away from me. Because they can sense that energy and it’s demanding too much of them. And it’s unlikely they want to join me in that energy, they’ll just show me the mirror of what I’m putting out there.

Candice Wu 12:39

But when I was the space of being in my enjoyment, allowing freedom, and going with what was there, without the pressure and demand on the world around me, the horses around me, then they really wanted to be near me, they like a leader like that.

Candice Wu 13:00

It really brought me to this parallel of how the world and the universe works. When we put this demand on the exterior world, to give us something, to show us our worth, to give us validation, we asked too much of the world. And it doesn’t really want to come into our space. It can, in fact, show us that exact fear that we have that underlies that pressure, that we fear we aren’t worthy or that we aren’t enough unless this shows up. And then we see that happen, and we start to believe it. But if we find the place of our openness, we find the place where we are worthy, or build that in ourselves, do healing work to arrive into the space because we already are worthy, then the things that we desire will most likely come into the space.

Candice Wu 14:07

So it makes me think of other places I might be doing that pressuring the outer world and how can I feel into that really neutral space of inviting, being open to receive, being into my enjoyment, my worth, my presence? So are there places in your life that you find that you could use that kind of presence? And just like to put that question out there for you.

Candice Wu 14:43

Okay, so back to the horses. I want to tell you about my meditation experiences with Silver.

Candice Wu 14:49

Silver is 35 years old. That's pretty old for a horse. He's kind of weak in the legs, he won't go down to lie down because he knows at this point that he may not be able to get up. Horses typically only lie own for a couple of hours because their organs begin to weigh on their lungs and their circulation in their legs can be slowed, especially if they are old or if they are cold, and they need to get up so that their bodies can function.

Candice Wu 15:18

So apparently he waits, in the winter, at times, about three weeks to lie down, because, in the winter, it is very hard for his legs to have enough strength. And it just so happened that the second day, the day that we first started meditating together, he had gone down, to lie down and in the morning, he couldn’t get up. He had gotten his legs caught up in the fence that he was right next to. And he couldn’t maneuver himself with enough strength to get out of that position and up again.

Candice Wu 15:57

Sara said that she had to drag him away from the fence, she pulled on his neck and moved his legs, and after a while, he got enough gusto and strength to lift himself up onto his legs. And he was in kind of a squat position. As she told it to me, his legs shaking, she didn’t know if he would make it up or down. And he ingeniously bounced off the fence that was right next to him, and then pushed himself to stand up. And after that, he shook for a little while. And then she said that he just went on his way, like, “Yeah, that was nothing.”

Candice Wu 16:44

And when I woke up, I didn’t even hear a thing. Apparently, this happened right outside my window. I had my earplugs in and I was just hard asleep. So this all happened before I woke up. And by then, Silver was doing fine. It didn’t faze him. And so I brought him up to this smaller arena up on top of this hill where there are lots of trees and bushes, plant life in this small space that’s fenced in. And here, he could be free and at liberty, like within the confines of this space of course.

Candice Wu 17:25

The space that Sara has created, where they can be much more at liberty within like two or three acres wasn’t quite ready yet. So we had to use this little smaller space.

Candice Wu 17:36

So here, I began to meditate in the corner of the rock. And I was practicing this meditation that Sara had offered me. And it was a beautiful meditation of breathing into the space inside of me, and breathing out into the space around me. And picturing that as I was inhaling and exhaling, and becoming one with my surroundings. But as I was doing that, I felt kind of stressed, it felt like “Oh, I don’t know if I want to be doing this.”

Candice Wu 18:09

And as soon as I switched to a Vedic meditation, it’s a Bija Mantra, so to sound meditation, but instead of saying it out loud, or making a sound, I do it very quietly and very subtly inside of myself.

Candice Wu 18:24

It’s a meditation that I do often, it’s the same as Transcendental Meditation. And as soon as I started doing that, about five minutes later, the horse instantly came over to me, it was instant, like I dropped in and there he was, where previously he was nibbling on the plants and moseying around.

Candice Wu 18:47

Now, his head is right next to my head and his body is facing me. And we’re meditating together.

Candice Wu 18:58

This stillness of us being together, at first alternated with him rubbing my back and my side body with his head, like really vigorously rubbing up and down and up and down. And he was just giving me so much affection, and was got knocked off the rock. So to put my feet down and really ground myself, and it gave him a few scratches and rubs he seems to like those. And then we got really quiet and deep into being in the presence with each other, I could hear his breath. Mine wasn’t quite sinking up. But I could feel that we were both in sync with ourselves. And his head drops, which signifies he’s relaxed, my neck released.

Candice Wu 19:48

I was just very aware of him being next to me, and how much support and strength and resource that was giving me. And it seemed that I was also giving that to him.

Candice Wu 20:02

So by the end of it, I just felt really clear and was fascinated with how quickly he felt that inner shift in my body, where my mind went to this deep meditative place. And even though I wasn’t that deep in it to start with, you felt the shift and came right over.

Candice Wu 20:30

So it’s amazing, that’s happening on all levels with animals, especially because they’re so receptive. It’s happening with babies, because they’re extremely receptive, whether they’re in utero or out and with each other.

Candice Wu 20:47

They think that because our minds are so busy, because our outer world is so chaotic at times, and our inner world is so chaotic, that we aren’t really hearing each other. We aren’t really connected with that subtle level of how we are communicating with each other but it’s happening.

Candice Wu 21:08

So think about that. Like, “What are you sending out when you put your mind and attention to something? And is your mind and attention just totally scattered and out in the middle of nowhere? Lost and wafting around? Or is it focused on something? And when we put our focus to something, when we are with ourselves fully, what happens?

Candice Wu 21:36

So, Day 2, with meditating with Silver was really interesting because we didn’t make it all the way up to the space. And that’s because I took him the wrong way up the hill. And with his legs, we were just, it was a rough walk across some bigger rocks. And it just wasn’t a clear pathway. And by the time we got pretty much up there, he had managed to turn around facing down the hill instead of up towards the small arena. And I couldn’t get him to turn around comfortably. So I decided to go all the way down the way that we should have come up. And by the time he got down there, he was unwilling to go back up. He just wouldn’t budge. And there was something in me that just felt like, “I’m not going to force him. Like he’s telling me No. And it was my fault. I took him the wrong way. And that was enough of a walk for him.”

Candice Wu 22:42

So I listened to that. And it felt good, too. And so he walked back to close to where his living space is. And instead of going back in there with the other horses, we stayed right outside of it. So this is just in the open space and now we’re just standing in the middle of it. And I’m feeling like, “Okay, I just adapted and flowed with it. Maybe that’s part of my lesson. And what can we do now?

Candice Wu 23:11

And Sara was nowhere to be found. And I thought, I called her a couple of times just by shouting her name, but I had no idea where she was. She had given me the space to just meditate with Silver by myself. And so, we just stood there. And I thought, “Well, we’re going to meditate right here.”

Candice Wu 23:33

I did have a halter on Silver and a rope attached to that. But I wanted him to be free enough to move around or to tell me if he wanted to go into another space. And so the rope was loose, and he didn’t move. We just stayed there. And as I meditated, he just meditated with me, he was relaxed. We completely stayed still for about 30 minutes. He didn’t even move to like shake off a fly, or to stomp his feet to get the ants off of his ankles. We just, we’re together.

Candice Wu 24:22

And in that meditation, I remembered some words from the Abundance book from John Randolph. It’s this small book that shows you how to manifest abundance. And there are these words that I got from him, but I might, I definitely have adapted them. And the words that came in that moment, were that: “The reality of abundance exists as me. The reality of abundance expresses itself as me.” And I kept feeling those words and feeling my energy grow stronger and stronger. Feeling my sense of my body expanding. And I could feel Silver next to me, and we just we’re there together.

Candice Wu 25:15

And part of my task with Silver this time, is Sarah had given to me was to connect with what I needed to work on that day. We were going to be doing a Constellation with horses for me that day. And she wanted me to get clear on my intention. So I asked, “What do I need to work on?” And just waited and received and the words I got were “I doubt myself. I doubt that I can make an impact.”

Candice Wu 25:46

And the interesting thing is, in that moment, I clearly was making an impact with Silver. If I was just being and going deep in myself, he was right with me, you do not want to leave. “So can I make an impact? I fear I can’t make an impact sometimes.” And that also connects with money fears, “How am I going to make enough? Am I going to have enough?” And doubting that I have enough, doubting I am enough.

Candice Wu 26:16

And those fears really don’t have much of a reality. I’ve never not had enough. Even if I thought I didn’t, it was fine. And I know I have an impact. And yet these fears come up. I’m sure I could have a different impact or larger impact at times. But I do feel my impact is enough at the core. And these little fears can get in the way of me taking my next step.

Candice Wu 26:49

So within this meditation, I received this information and that informed the Constellation that happened later, which I’ll tell you about in just a moment, but want to talk about the third day of meditation with Silver, where we did make it up to the arena, I went the right way. He didn’t fight me on it. He also knew the way. And, that just goes back to that second day when I let him up the wrong way. I did feel him object and stop. But when I invited him to go forward, he did, into the wrong pathway. So he was telling me, “This is not the right way.” Like, “This is not the way I go.”

Candice Wu 27:32

So Day 3, we did go the right way. We got up there. And he started off by nibbling the plants. And I was sitting in meditation, feeling myself, feeling my breath, going into my Mantra. And within about five minutes, he came towards me just like the first day, but there wasn’t a sharp shift in my energy, he just wanted to come over I guess. And he did that rubbing again. He just rubbed his head onto my body, onto my back. And he did it so strongly it was like, “Oh my gosh, like, you’re so strong.”

Candice Wu 28:12

And I remembered that the night before I actually had gone outside in the middle of the night because I worried that he had gone down again. And I brought my flashlight out there and looked around. And it wasn’t him, it was Jackie. It was another horse that was putting her butt up to the fence and scratching her butt against it. And that was the commotion I was hearing. So it wasn’t Silver falling to the ground or something which I just wanted to know if it was him.

Candice Wu 28:50

And I had remembered that. And with his strength, his head being so strong, it was clear to me how strong he was even though his legs were going weaker. He was telling me “I’m still really strong. And I’m right here.” And his head and mind is so clear. I feel his clarity. I feel how “with it” and “present” he is.

Candice Wu 29:16

And it reminded me of my great grandmother who I live with growing up. I call her Wok Wok. She’s someone who I feel, saved my life. She saw me when I was younger in times where I’d experienced some really hard family experiences and continual trauma that I didn’t even know was happening, but was surviving through. She was there and saw me with such a great presence.

Candice Wu 29:47

She lived until she was 96. But even then, she was super strong in her mind and aware. Her legs were giving out. She would stand to do the dishes at the sink and insist upon doing them. But she would lean against her forearms. And do, you know, her two dishes that she had saved up. And eventually, she got these giant purple bruises on her arms. But she’s still insisted on doing it. She wouldn’t let anyone else do it.

Candice Wu 30:18

So here in this moment, when Silver’s rubbing my back, “I felt oh my gosh, you were the energy of my great grandma.” She’s speaking through you. And I hear you. I hear both of you. And I heard this message that “There’s nothing to worry about. Don’t worry about me, I’m so strong,” which is the way I saw my grandmother.

Candice Wu 30:43

And eventually, we were just breathing and connecting. And I was hearing the world through him, hearing through his ears, hearing all the different sounds. The birds, the wind, the leaves rustling, the crack of something moving on the ground, and just being.

Candice Wu 31:07

I felt the wisdom of his presence. And it reminded me of my wisdom of the knowing that I’ve had before. And suddenly, I thought to ask him, “Have we known each other in the past life? Have we known each other before?” And the feeling I got was “Yes, you’ve known me. We have been together before. And I’m here to show you love and that you love being with elders because they’re so wise. You love being with me, I am wise.”

Candice Wu 31:39

And his message for me for the rest of my experience in this mentorship was to play. “Play and be with us. There’s nothing to learn exactly. Don’t try to learn even though you will learn. But be with us. Enjoy us. Be in your pleasure with us. We’re here, play, and have fun, and make a noise like Jackie.”

Candice Wu 32:06

Jackie is that horse that was scratching her butt against the fence and she has this other horse, Meiji. I love Meiji too. She comes near Jackie and tries to be her friend and tries to get close to her. But Jackie just doesn’t want her to be near her and so she lifts up her hind leg to show her like “I’m gonna kick you if you come in and closer.”

Candice Wu 32:30

And then she’ll screech like this – making sounds

Candice Wu 32:37

And she’ll tell me like “Back off! No, don’t come near me!”

Candice Wu 32:44

So the message I was getting from Silver was, “Make a noise like Jackie, say No like Jackie, but go for it like Meiji, get fears like Meiji, and be sensual like Meiji, and be wise like Meiji, be wise like me.”

Candice Wu 33:01

So in this moment I just started crying. And I felt that we knew each other. I felt that I did want to be doing this with horses. I wanted to meditate with them more often. I want to be in enjoyment with them, not demand of them. I do still want to be writing. But all that is to build the relationship for better writing experiences together.

Candice Wu 33:25

And so as we concluded this meditation, and I walked down back to the main space with him, Sara looked at us and said, “Wow, you to look like your old friends.” And it was just exactly right. Like we were, we were old friends. It was beautiful.

Candice Wu 33:47

And I feel him with me now still, just like I feel my great grandma with me. And I can see his strength. And I can see it wasn’t helpful that I was worrying about him. And he wanted me to feel into his strength and know his strength.

Candice Wu 34:07

So the last hours of my experience with the horses, we danced with the horses again. This was my second or third time dancing with the horses, dancing with Corazon, who’s a Mustang.

Candice Wu 34:20

And I’ll add some pictures of all this into the show notes. And you can find that at CandiceWu.com/dancingwithhorses so you can see what that looks like. And some pictures of Sara as well, because she showed me how she dances with Diva.

Candice Wu 34:35

Diva is this massive horse. She’s black. And I think she’s a draft horse. She just looks like half-elephant to me. And her head is as big as my torso and head combined. When I stand next to her, like her butt, she’s still about six inches taller than me, I’m five foot two. She’s huge! The biggest horse I’ve seen! And I’m sure there are bigger horses out there. But she and Sara dance together. Like they’re just dance partners, she’ll swing her head up and down, she’ll run with her. She’ll just lift her front legs up like she’s bucking, right when Sara does it, and they do it together. And so, also, apparently she like, get on her front legs and kick her back legs out. I didn’t get to see that though. But it was amazing.

Candice Wu 35:34

And my ability to do that was not as great, I’m just learning. And I’m just tuning into the energy and connecting. For me, it felt like I needed to take more time with these horses to develop that relationship with them and to feel into how I can use my energy to invite them and to play with them in that way. So I was doing it a little bit. But I was just letting myself be satisfied with what the outcome was because I didn’t want to expect or put too much pressure.

Candice Wu 36:12

So thank you so much for listening to my stories about dancing and meditating with horses and being with them. There’s a whole other component of healing work with horses, being with horses, and allowing the experience to be seen and healing that I haven’t talked about here.

Candice Wu 36:33

And I’d like to talk about that in the next episode. So I’ll do that in a separate episode, where I talk about Horse Constellations. And you can find that episode — when it comes out — at CandiceWu.com/horseconstellations.

Candice Wu 36:51

But a brief thing I’ll say about it now is that whenever I was with myself fully in the exact emotion that was present with me right then and there, and not reaching out into the world but just being in the space, the horses would come to me, they would be with me. And that was beautiful. And there was so much support there.

Candice Wu 37:16

And I have this experience of the Constellation that I did with horses as well as just being in the space and experiencing my body somatically, where the horses interacted with me in “Oh my gosh, the most magical way!” Where it was just right for my next step and where the energy needed to go. So I can’t wait to share that with you in the next podcast.

Candice Wu 37:43

As you probably know, I have interviews with guests every other week. So either this podcast will go out later this week, or will go out in two weeks. So look out for that. So I want to just leave with a few little messages that I’m receiving from the horses. And a poem that I wrote about Silver and our meditation.

Candice Wu 38:05

So some of the messages are that all things are speaking to us. Everything around us is speaking to us. And there’s some message, whether that’s from people, animals, the rock, the pillow, things, objects, all of that speaking to us and has something to show us.

Candice Wu 38:27

And when you encounter people that are giving you some idea or message or thought, even advice that you don’t think you want to hear, there might be something there for you. There might be something a little nugget of something.

Candice Wu 38:44

The other thought I have from horses is that it’s enough, I’m enough, you are enough. It’s all enough. And that, as we arrive in that, you can truly feel and be in that space of being enough.

Candice Wu 39:07

So here is the poem that I wrote about Silver that eventually I want to create into a song. It’s very unpolished. Just pieces put together. And at some point, I’ll work with it a little more.

Candice Wu 39:23

Silver You watched me cry The big ocean and river You watched No matter why

You showed me how to breathe as you Hear the wind through your ears Be the energy of your heart The wisdom of your years

Silver, you tell me Grey horse you show me

While your legs are weak And almost giving out You remind me of your strength With three rubs of your snout

Say no I don’t wanna with a screech like Jackie Get a little go for it, the way that Meiji does You cannot go wrong as long As you are you and you are no one else

I break into the fullness and finally hear you You have been an old friend I briefly forgot you But this is not the only end

Silver, oh Horse of the land you tell your tale to me I learn to listen I become the you in me Oh, Silver

All is enough and enough is enough This is all, all enough

Candice Wu 40:41

So, thank you, Silver. Thank you, Meiji and Jackie and all the horses, Diva, Corazon, Ruby, and Pretty Boy. And thank you to Sara, nature, and the space that held me there, the wind, the air, the mountains, the land, the rocks, the water.

Candice Wu 41:14

I’m holding all of that in gratitude and also thanking you for receiving my story, my experience, and little tidbits that I’ve been thinking about in the aftermath. And I hope that you find the thing that makes you feel connected with yourself. We hope you reconnect with those experiences that have brought you to the feeling of “Wow, this is really me.”

Candice Wu 41:48

And someday, I will have a space where you can come and join me and meditate with me and the horses, do Horse Constellations and have Somatic Experiencing healing sessions. Witness the horses, maybe have tea with them, while witnessing them. Breathing with them. That’s my next dream.

Candice Wu 42:18

I’m also recognizing that collaborating is really important around this and receiving other people’s ideas. So if this gives you any ideas for yourself, or for me about being with horses, dancing, meditating, having space and sharing space with horses, I would love to hear from you. If you know of people that are doing that and collaborating, communicating with horses in a beautiful way or showing people how to have experiences offering those experiences, I’d love to know what you know.

Candice Wu 42:58

Feel free to contact me. You can find me at CandiceWu.com/connect. And if you’d like to stay in touch with my journey and what arises from all this and what continues on, you can always stay closely connected with me through the newsletter that I put out every two weeks. And you can find that at CandiceWu.com/embody.

Candice Wu 43:25

Sending my love and gratitude to all of you and the knowing that all is enough. You are enough. We are enough. So whatever it is in your life that you were not worried you’re enough for or if you just have that lingering fear, you’re not enough, find yourself, find the enoughness that exists here. Breathe in this message. Breathe in this moment and feel the enoughness of just being alive here. And cultivate those ways that connect you with this feeling that you are enough. Thanks for joining me and see you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

This episode is about what’s alive with me right now. And what’s alive with me right now is feeling just schooled by my emotions. I’ve been feeling a lot of grief and pain. And this is the story of how that’s unfolding in me, what’s emerging around my ancestry, and how I’m dealing and healing with all of these experiences.

Candice Wu 0:29

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 0:42

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 1:03

Hello, and welcome back to the Embody Podcast. It is wonderful to have you here. Last week, I got to share an interview and conversation with one of my healers, Charmayne Kilcup, and it was fabulous. It was about self-forgiveness and tuning into worth, it was just so fun to have that with her. And it’s very timely, because I really needed her this week. Sometimes, I just scheduled her like once a month and this week, it was like, two times within the span of seven days, kind of, yeah, seven days. So, it’s been a little while since I’ve felt schooled by what’s going on inside of me. And what I mean is just feeling overwhelmed and feeling an intense density of something coming up in through me that wants to be seen and looked at, that shakes me to the core.

Candice Wu 2:09

The last time I remember feeling this intensely was during that experience about a year ago. I talked about it in Episode 13 Spiritual Crisis and Existential Crisis. It was about a year ago in Bali, that I felt that so many of my belief sets were being pushed to the surface to be examined again. And I felt like the core underneath me of who I was, was just breaking apart and I didn’t know who I was anymore, even though I did. But the feeling of, I don’t even know who I am anymore. What is this life anymore? What am I doing here? Who am I? Those feelings and questions were so big in me last year. And it all came to the surface with a urinary tract infection and a bunch of other body symptoms, a lot of heat, a lot of anger and a lot of emotions coming to the surface.

Candice Wu 3:17

It was such a scary and vulnerable time but I felt like I was able to move through it with presence and a lot of help. And Charmayne was somebody who was extremely helpful during that time and, yeah, it’s been that long since I felt that schooled by my emotional or inner world. And I’m coming off the tail-end of it now. But I want to share with you what I’ve been experiencing. But first, when I feel this way, feeling schooled, I think I just need to, like, bring some laughter to it because it’s been so intense. But the beauty is that I’ve been able to laugh at myself, and also see very well that this is something that my soul is wanting to heal. But in it, I couldn’t help but feel incompetent. And coming to do this podcast, even I felt like what do I even have to say? What can I even say? Or what authority do I even have to say anything?

Candice Wu 4:25

And it’s just that kind of dismantling of the ego and the inner world that brings a level of vulnerability and incompetencies, incompetency to it all, because, in a way, we have to get to the place of unknowing. And we have to get to the place where we say, okay, I surrender to this, what is it? I don’t know what this is, what is this feeling. And to explore it in an earnest way, feel through it in an earnest way. It sometimes requires us to break and to break into that place of feeling unskilled.

Candice Wu 5:06

And yet to feel that way to allow ourselves to feel the uncertainty, to feel incompetent, or to feel unskilled, requires a lot of skill, requires a lot of mastery and navigation. So, I just want to say that I would not be here to be talking about this, to be even feeling okay in myself if it weren’t for the support of other people. I’ve been able to share some of this with my mother, and with my partner, and with a few friends as well. I have such a good support system and that means the world to me. So, I just do not underestimate support, community, and people that I trust that really helped me along the way.

Candice Wu 5:54

So, the episode I was talking about that happened about a year ago was Episode 13. I think I called it The Terrifying Gifts of Freedom and Expansion, Spiritual Crisis and Existential Crisis. So long title, and it may be it even had #WTF is Going On?

Candice Wu 6:16

If you want to check out that episode, you can find it at CandiceWu.com/ep13 and just I think about things I’ve recorded a year ago or even like months ago or a week ago, and think, wow, I was such a different person in a way. And things I might have said, then maybe I wouldn’t say now or I see things differently now. So, please keep that in mind as you listen to that episode and understand that we’re all evolving, that all of our perceptions change over time and we allow ourselves that to grow and to change and to be different, and to assert something in each moment, knowing that the next moment it might be different.

Candice Wu 7:02

So, also encourage you to feel that way about yourself or to see yourself in that light that each moment of growth, each moment of new awareness can bring you a new perspective that also gives compassion to the past self. Your past self, that has believed something different. And it’s not to reject or dismiss or to avoid your past self or to judge your past self. But to add on and to recognize that you are evolving. And that’s okay. And what you’ve said before, doesn’t mean that it sticks to you forever. Even though in this society, we tend to do that, we tend to, I don’t know, let things stick onto people’s reputations. And yes, there is a character over time that’s built. But can we afford ourselves the ability or the capacity to change moment to moment, and to see things differently as time goes on?

Candice Wu 8:08

Well, let’s talk about where this all began this time around feeling schooled, feeling really deep, deep, deep emotions that I didn’t know where they were coming from, exactly. And I didn’t know what was trying to show itself to me. And even though I felt like I had pinpointed some of the emotion and where it’s linked to, and have talked to the emotion that was coming through, there was more and more and more and more. I was feeling so much grief and pain, physical pain in my body and my heart area, my chest, in my stomach. And the grief that was coming with it was so huge.

Candice Wu 8:56

And luckily, I’m at this place in myself where I can be with the emotion without knowing what it is. That’s that place of unknowing. That’s that place of saying, “Okay, what is this?” with curiosity? Whereas in the past, I would feel intolerant of emotion that I didn’t understand, but with my mind, but sitting in it, I can feel through it, I have tools to temper it if I need to. And I can honor it without knowing exactly what it is. But there is something in me that feels like if I can find the context for this, or give this grief or pain what it needs. It usually reveals its context, it usually reveals the resolution, the completion of what it needs to feel safe and well again, inside of myself.

Candice Wu 9:53

I’m totally tangenting. So, I’ll back it up a bit, you might know that I’m in a pretty new relationship. And in any new relationship that feels like a soul connection to me, I feel like the energy of the other person is something that enlivened something in me or brings forward and brings alive something in me that is ready to be seen, claimed or expressed. And this one is no different. So, I feel like the energy of this person that I’m in a new relationship with, created an echo effect into my soul and an alchemic reaction that brought forward and unearthed a lot of different emotions that, in some way have to do with him, and in so many other ways, have everything to do with me, and my ancestry, and my soul, and what’s the next level of loving and healing was for me.

Candice Wu 11:02

So, with this alchemic reaction, this energetic exchange, I started fearing, losing my Chineseness, that the complexity of who I am that included my ethnicity, and my experience as Chinese-American, couldn’t be held within the context of the relationship or couldn’t be, couldn’t find safety within it. And that was just the fear. And as it all shook out, there was space for it, and that process I won’t talk about now, but mainly want to focus on my own experience and what’s unearthing for me. But as I turned to that fear towards myself, and wondered, could I hold my own complexity, a whole slew of emotions and ancestral experience came up to the surface.

Candice Wu 12:01

And it’s not like this is the first time I’ve explored my Chinese-American identity or the pains of my ancestry, you probably all know, all of you that have listened to more than one episode that I’m really working deeply with my ancestry, and through family constellations, and just tuning into the energies and belief sets of the family system, that that’s one tool that I use to heal at the soul level.

Candice Wu 12:30

I believe that our family systems bring us a very unique and powerful set of lessons that are imprinted in our DNA as we come into this life. And it’s an outward expression of the belief sets that we come in with, that give us a mirror and a way to a platform to work with healing our hearts and souls. There’s obviously the spiritual level that can separate itself from any family tangling or ancestral inheritance. But what I find is that at a very, very deep visceral and unconscious level, that those things are still living in us, the pains of our ancestry that are an integrated, the losses that want to be seen, the grief that never got to be had or the person that was silenced, or the experience of immigration or war or losing important people.

Candice Wu 13:37

If that isn’t honored in some way, somewhere in the ancestry, it gets inherited, passed down and there’s some way in which our body resonates and mirrors, literally and symbolically, physically, the experience of the pain, whether that’s through literal heartache or heart attack, or feeling out of it, or having a great deal of depression in this life that seems unexplained. So, I really embrace using the family system and the ancestry as one way to reveal the inner workings of my soul, because we’re just intricately connected that way. So, as I turned that question on myself, can I hold my own complexity?

Candice Wu 14:29

And I asked the grief inside of me, where are you coming from? Or what do you have to say? What’s your story? And listen from a heart space. And the grief first told me, can I be taken care of, will you take care of me?

Candice Wu 14:48

And I knew that that really touched something because we started crying more. But still, I couldn’t quite understand what that was. And my mind went to immigration and coming to the United States, with this dream of a better life that my family probably came with. They wanted to have better education and have better jobs, and probably very earnestly came here, but with some fear. And I felt the experience of farther back ancestors, people that are related to the culture that got hurt while coming here, that maybe worked on the railroad, and weren’t given citizenship or weren’t treated well. And small experiences where they wonder if the complexity of their culture and who they are, could be taken in by people here in America.

Candice Wu 15:48

And I’m sharing this not to blame anyone or to bring victimization or anything, or a villainization but to explain what I feel was the experience of my ancestry through immigration. Can the US take care of me? Will we be used for our bodies and seen only for our bodies, what we can give or do and not seeing for our hearts and humanity, not seeing for where our hearts thrive, or what we’re bringing with us and the richness of our culture and love? So, with that, some of the grief was continuing to move and yet, it still felt way, way, way, way, way deeper than that.

Candice Wu 16:36

And again, it’s not to blame the US or the people that came to receive my family or those that immigrated before my family. But to just show the pain of I think many immigrant families that are not quite fully taken in or understood. And also, I realized there’s the American experience, on the other side of that, that I’m not speaking to, but today just want to speak to mine. So, even though I was feeling this grief, and this pain, in these belief sets of fearing that I would be seen just as a body and not for my humanity. Well, that relieves some of the grief and pain. As I said, there was way more. And the next feeling and thought that came up about the grief was the feeling of being left to die.

Candice Wu 17:35

And that also felt ancestral. It also felt cultural. And so I just had this imagining that I was honoring all the people that had been left to die that maybe had been used for their work, your physical strength. But that had not been taken care of and had been left there without being nourished back or mutually given back to. But then it took me all the way into my ancestry to my grandpa, my maternal grandfather, when he was about 14, or 15. The story goes from my mom that he had to crawl to get help after his parents died of starvation, that this was during the war times in China and there was no food. And he was so weak, he couldn’t even walk he had to crawl. I don’t even know where he went to get help or what he did next. But the feeling of being left to die — felt related to the untold story of my great grandparents.

Candice Wu 18:47

But they lived and I’m living proof that they lived and the ancestry survived. And I survived because of them. This whole experience of processing this grief feels like a call and response to my ancestors and the people of my culture. That there’s this call to honor this grief and that grief. And there’s just more where that came from but my response to my great grandparents is, I’m right here, I’m alive, and I’m doing so well. And thank you. And even though you were left to die, or you die, I’m very well alive, unless carried on.

Candice Wu 19:38

So, as I told my mom about the experience of feeling left to die, and asking about my grandfather and his parents, she told me the story, and then she told me a story about her maternal side of the family, that my great grandpa on her mother’s side was a woodworker and that he had built a door so strong during the wartime, same time period, that the store was so strong that when the Japanese came to invade, and I guess they were very vicious and just were trying to kill everybody, that my great grandparents saved so many people from the village that they lived in, because they all crammed themselves into this room behind this door that was like six to ten inches thick. And that the Japanese could not knock over this door or break it open.

Candice Wu 20:41

And I just can’t help but feel so much love in that moment of imagining everyone supporting each other behind that door, so much pride, that my great grandfather, his craftwork helped save so many people and the togetherness, but also the fear and the pain, and the hurt of the other coming in and invading. And I say it that way like the other is in the unknown people, the people that we say are not us, but the other. And it feels like many of these experiences that I’m touching on this cycle of grief and pain have to do with that, other than I’m experiencing that other than I’m talking about that cross-cultural experience that has brought pain wounding and hurt.

Candice Wu 21:46

As I imagine to this experience of saving themselves behind this door and the grief that came from that. I felt the words, we lost everything, we lost everything. And my words to my ancestry here or to honor that, yes, you’ve lost so much. And you’ve gained so much. You’ve gained a whole line of a family after this. And all those people that were there with you all the people you saved. All of you that survived, you survived. And that means the world to me, because that gave me life.

Candice Wu 22:40

So, while they lost so much, they also gained so much and they gained me. And for me, that’s extremely redeeming and helps me honor that this was their experience and not take it on as mine. And like a live in it and soak in it, we can give it back to them because I feel their desire for me to live my life free of this loss. This isn’t my loss, this is theirs.

Candice Wu 23:14

And to recognize how much I have right now, the abundance in my life, the abundance in my heart, the abundance in the people around me, the experiences that I’m experiencing and get to have, that is to honor their lives and to honor their losses to live in the game now. So, while they lost so much, they had everything to gain as well, because they survived. And they took that up, they created more. And that feels really redeeming for them as well and for me to feel that recovery of the loss.

Candice Wu 23:56

So, I did not know that all this pain and grief would open up into just so many different aspects of my Chinese history and my ancestry. I don’t believe that I had anyone that I knew or my family knew that was working on the railroad in America, in the US. But that just feels like something that’s so familiar to me, just like in the past, I had processed the pain of Tiananmen Square, and the experience of being silenced and fearing death, if I were to speak up for something I believed in, and also processing the experience of Chinese foot binding, feeling like that’s something that I’ve experienced before.

Candice Wu 24:54

So, I’m not sure if those are part of my past life experience or not. But something about that is very close to me. And I came in with so many beliefs of that I should stay silent, that I should not exist, that it was dangerous to speak, and it’s dangerous to stand for what you believe in, it’s dangerous to stand. So, that just relates to the foot binding and to Tiananmen Square. So, whoa.

Candice Wu 25:26

Even though I had worked with some of these pieces before these other pieces that I knew about, but didn’t feel the fullness of, I didn’t realize that there was something to be felt about them now. But of course, there was. I don’t think my ancestry has stopped to grieve those losses. They’ve been working so hard. Chinese people are very well known to work hard, at least my ancestry. And working hard is such a value.

Candice Wu 25:57

So, I know that that working hard and that pushing through, and not grieving is actually part of how I am, where I am today and how I get to receive so much abundance today. And so my gift back is to honor them and recognize what they went through. And to receive all those gifts of their hard work by living my life from where it is now, from the gifts they’ve given me.

Candice Wu 26:32

Just taking a deep breath with this. I don’t have it all sorted out, there’s still some, a little bit of emotion left about this. But it has moved a great deal since I could feel a genuine honoring of my ancestors for the pain that they experienced, of both sets of grandparents on my mother’s side, the layers of things that are happening here. And to give that pain that belongs to them, the rightful place of it, staying with them and not with me, that really helps to release my pain and my grief.

Candice Wu 27:17

And so, now as I sit back to reflect on this, with all of you listening, I just feel appreciative of myself that I was able to expand into the discomfort and appreciative of my mother who is willing to share some of these bits and pieces that she knew. She didn’t feel much for them and that’s okay. It’s not hers to feel either, necessarily. But I am so glad that I know my ancestry better now, I know the story even better. And that’s where the soul of our family challenges us to honor it, is when something in the storyline in the heart of the family soul is waiting to be held and seen and loved.

Candice Wu 28:11

So, I do feel a greater love for my family system. I feel even more resilience and strength coming through the abundance, coming through and a lot of what I’ve said in this podcast, to all of you, I didn’t have all that figured out before I started saying it all about the abundance and about what I would say back to my family. I appreciate that a lot of it emerged through the conversation here.

Candice Wu 28:41

And I want to just end with thanking you for listening to this episode, that so deeply. I don’t know, just deep, about my family system and my process of being in touch with my ancestry with my pain, and also allowing me the grace of sharing this story, while not having it all figured out. And I’m wishing that for you to that you allow yourself that space of not having it all sorted out, expanding a little at a time into the discomfort that you might have. And getting curious about what is it in my heart, my ancestry, in the collective or the archetypal energy, or my past life that wants to be seen here. And if that’s not something you can access, just to even feel what you can access and honor that without pushing it away completely. But can you look a little bit and then a little bit more, and take a break when you need to.

Candice Wu 29:54

A lot of times we see that place of “I don’t know” or incompetency, like when you feel broken enough that you feel like you can’t even do your job or that you can’t even speak with any authority, which is what I was referring to in the beginning of this podcast. We think that this is a setback for us. We think that when we’ve reached a pain in us, or discomfort, or emotion of anxiety, grief, anger or something, we tend to have the thoughts that this is a setback we haven’t we come a little farther than this, or why did I get back here.

Candice Wu 30:41

And I encourage you to let go of those thoughts or rather just acknowledge them and not give too much to them because the big feeling that we’re having tends to be the preface to a major expansion. And if we can expand into the feeling, that feeling wants to help us to bring us more loving and resolve for the next thing. And to bring us even more of ourselves more of our own story, so that we know who we are, but then we know we are not that. We know the deeper love that we are and that we can feel even more resilient and embracing of whatever emotions come up at any moment.

Candice Wu 31:30

Sometimes we also think that we’re losing it, like oh my gosh, I’m going crazy, or now I’ve really lost it or I’m so overwhelmed, I can’t handle myself, I can’t handle this, I guess it means I can’t handle anything.

Candice Wu 31:46

Whatever words come up, these actually might also be related to your ancestry. When I had the words come up that I’ve lost it all, or the feeling that I’ve lost everything, or the feeling of being left to die, those words had a context and because I, not that I dwelled on those words, but I felt them and I witnessed them, and I was aware of them, because I didn’t just push them away. It allowed me to find the true context for those words, and those words wanted to be honored and fully seen and felt with my great grandparents.

Candice Wu 32:34

And when those words, and those feelings that come underneath those words, get felt and acknowledged, then they just dissolve. But when they’re waiting to be acknowledged, they will wait, time doesn’t matter, it will pass down generation after generation, after generation.

Candice Wu 32:56

And for some of you like me, you are feeling even farther back into your generational lines. I’ve been working with my great grandparents and their experience. I’m no longer working with my parents, and my grandparents in the same way of what their wounds, were there are losses. I’ve just worked on those and worked on those and was able to go further back. Not that that’s the goal. That’s just the process that I went through. And it feels like deeper layers that can have a stronger effect like homeopathy down the line of my ancestry is stronger medicine. And it gets to an even farther back, stuckness or disconnection around the flow of love, and opens up that flow again, like a faucet. So, that flow of love is even more sourced from behind them, behind my great grandparents and flowing towards me. So, I encourage you to hear the words that come with how you describe your situation.

Candice Wu 34:04

Here are the words that come from how you describe your physical pain, or your emotional pain, or the experience that you’re having with a relationship, your work, anything. And try to take those out of your context and let them float in this sort of imaginable dream space. Dream space, meaning one that connects with the soul, imagery, feelings, and emotions that connect with the soul and the heart, rather than the logic of our daily lives, rather than the mental and brain logic but living in this space where things can mean different things, words can connect with different experiences. And let that open up for you that it’s a possibility that you’ve inherited some words, even if the words are, I’m never enough or this is how my life always is, that I always get the short end of the stick.

Candice Wu 35:09

Listen to those words. And just see what might happen if you open this door to the ancestral inheritance or your past life inheritance.

Candice Wu 35:22

One more thing that just came into my awareness is that May 5th started the day of running in Remembrance and Awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. It was a #MMIW and #nativewomenrunning. So, just aware that there is something in the archetypal energy that other people are experiencing as well around, people being left behind or left to die. This MMIW is about remembering those who have been taken or stolen or secretly murdered, and not spoken for and silenced.

Candice Wu 36:02

So, there’s a lot going on in the air and a lot of times when I’m feeling something, I don’t realize that this is going on in other parts of the world or in the soul of the world. So, it’s really nice to look out sometimes and notice what might be going on. So, that’s all I have for today. I appreciate the space to share pieces from my ancestry and the words that I’ve offered back to my ancestry as a way to show them that life moved on and that their love really traveled downward, if they hadn’t really let that click.

Candice Wu 36:44

A lot of times when we are in hurt, shock, trauma loss, and a part of us is stuck there, that same part of us doesn’t realize that life moved on, and isn’t able to fully take in the life that moved on or the growth that was had or the love or abundance that stemmed from a loss or a time of loss. It’s like that part of us is stuck in time, and really needing to grieve or acknowledge something back there before it can say, “Oh, wow!” and look at all the beauty that came from it. And by highlighting the beauty that came from it in going that way first, it can also help the grief to move, it can help bring the safety to say that, “You survived, thank goodness for that!” Because sometimes our nervous system doesn’t realize we have survived, even if it moves forward, even if it created abundance.

Candice Wu 37:49

So, thanks so much for letting me share these pieces of my ancestry, my responses, to share this in a way that’s actually very free-flowing and not so orderly. And I want to leave you with two quotes that a friend shared with me these quotes are by the poet, Nayyirah Waheed. And I’ll connect them in the show notes. The first one which really pertains to this episode.

Candice Wu 38:20

“There are feelings you haven’t felt yet, give them time, they are almost here, fresh.”

Candice Wu 38:32

And the second poem is, “We returned to each other in waves. This is how water loves.”

Candice Wu 38:41

So, I’m just really feeling both of these right now. But there are feelings you haven’t felt yet, give them time, they are almost here, just allowing things to unfold and allowing the feelings to come as they will.

Candice Wu 38:59

And having that respect for the way things move and want to show themselves to you. And the second one, “We returned to each other in waves. This is how water loves.” It feels similar water and emotions. This is how water moves. Let’s let our emotions, like water move in us the same way. Contraction expansion, coming in waves, a way, closer, respecting that all of our inner world moves in this way. Like the moon connects with the water, like the ocean tide coming in and out.

Candice Wu 39:45

So, thanks again for joining me today. If you enjoyed this and would like to contribute to my patreon page, which supports the podcast, the production of it and the publishing of it. You can find that contribution page at CandiceWu.com/patreon. And even a dollar a month really helps out to build up the energy behind the podcast and I just feel very touched when I receive that support.

Candice Wu 40:17

If you’re interested in learning more about family constellations, or in listening to the conversations with other constellations facilitators, feel free to find these episodes at CandiceWu.com/ep5, which is about Family Constellation, CandiceWu.com/nick, which is a conversation with Nick Werber, CandiceWu.com/suzi, SUZI, which is a conversation with Suzi Tucker. We also have the conversation with Dan and Emily at CandiceWu.com/danandemily, as well as an upcoming conversation with Francesca Mason Boring, which is at CandiceWu.com/francesca. That is, at this moment not published yet, but will be in June. You can also find a little bit about family constellations at my website at CandiceWu.com.

Candice Wu 41:17

Also, if you’re interested in receiving more updates from me about my personal healing experiences or life experiences. You can check out my newsletters and sign up for them at CandiceWu.com/embody, and there you’ll receive up-to-date information about what’s happening for me, where I am in the world, as well as self-love notes, podcast updates, workshops, and retreats.

Candice Wu 41:46

Thanks so much for joining me today. And I’ll leave you with a little music so you can transition into your day or reflect on your own ancestry, what’s coming up in you, what emotions are moving in and out, what parts of you are wanting to emerge and bring you more expansion, and sending you all the love. Take care and see you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

Well, we have a very special guest today, Dr. Rahul Sharma, who is the founder of Funkadesi sharing a special improvisational live musical piece on the sitar, as well as asking the question: How do we insist that we all belong, sharing his double migration story in his family lineage, and here he talks about being an artist, a self-absorbed and selfless endeavor and shares his CHAI recipe which is not a tea recipe but a concoction for how to be in life.

Candice Wu 0:35

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 0:49

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 1:10

This episode is sponsored by the Embodied Healing group that happens once a month. This is a special group for two, four people online that wants to have soul and body support through the month whether you’re yearning to get in touch with your deeper inner wisdom or have some healing with the pieces that are challenging in your life, or to strengthen your vision and what you’re going towards in your life. This group might be for you, so feel free to check it out at CandiceWu.com/patreon. You can also find the links in the show notes that are connected to this episode at CandiceWu.com/rahul.

Candice Wu 1:54

It’s a real pleasure to have Dr. Rahul Sharma on the show today. Dr. Sharma is one of my previous professors at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology, where I studied clinical psychology. When I was in school, I really admired the way he was able to talk about the difficult things, talk about power and equality, what was happening in the room with each of us in terms of how we felt, what aspects of us in our identity were coming into the storyline of who we were in that room or how we felt in life. And he created a very safe space with music, with drumming, with bringing in other ways of connecting that support a universal connecting on the soul level, on the heart level that I really admired.

Candice Wu 2:46

Rahul is an accomplished and passionate consultant, artist, experiential learning innovator, psychologist and expert in the areas of diversity, equity, inclusion, leadership, and growth. His biggest focus is the recognition of the need to create space, unique spaces for people to grow, produce, and flourish and to find their own creative voice as well.

Candice Wu 3:13

I have always felt supported in his presence and his invitation for all of the parts of us to show up, for all of us to belong in the space together, and for our inner parts of us to come forward to the table as a valuable part of us is so healing.

Candice Wu 3:32

So grab a tea, or coffee or something lovely to drink, a CHAI perhaps as you tune into this episode on his sharing of his recipe for CHAI, and enjoy this music and this lovely experience that can bring you in touch with your beauty, your artistry, your sense of belonging, or your heart’s aching for belonging, and the insistence of life that we are all belonging, the insistence that we are all human and have a place.

Candice Wu 4:07

So I hope this episode inspires you just as it did for me and gives you a connection with more of yourself.

Candice Wu 4:17

Well, this episode is coming at a very poignant time for me because I’m stepping into more enjoyment of beauty and feeling the wholeness of beauty, not just the pleasure, not just the good things as we might label them. The things that are pleasurable to experience but the wholeness of life, finding the beauty in all of the experience all of the challenging, sad, upsetting, angering, as well as pleasurable and delightful, joyful, blissful feelings. Holding that all with the sense of amusement and play and treasuring the moment is the beauty that I’m after. And this episode with Rahul is truly inspiring to me right now because I’m also stepping into more of my own artistry to allow my inner artist to capture and receive inspiration and let that flow through me, let that have its own life. And it’s just so inspiring to hear Rahul’s story as well as his music and to hear the roots and the intentions behind his music. It’s very exciting.

Candice Wu 5:40

Hey, Rahul.

Rahul Sharma 5:42

Hey there.

Candice Wu 5:43

Welcome to the show. This is really an honor. I don’t know how this conversation is going to go.

Rahul Sharma 5:55

I hope it goes well.

Candice Wu 5:56

I can’t imagine it not, I just am so curious about what’s going to open up and, you have your sitar there with you?

Rahul Sharma 6:05

Yes, I do.

Candice Wu 6:07

I guess we’ll just start by introducing you a little bit. And right now I’ll just say that you are my previous professor and now a colleague, and you are an artist, a consultant, a speaker, psychologist, and what I have loved about our interactions is the feeling of inclusiveness that I have around you and the recognition of just all these different parts of ourselves in one space together. And many interactions of you bringing your artistry to the healing work and the therapy work that you were teaching me and other students, like bringing in drum circles and just opening up these parts of who you are. So welcome. I just wanted to start with a piece of how I know you.

Rahul Sharma 7:00

Oh, that’s very sweet. And I’m really glad to get that feedback, that was coming across, of how much my identity and just what I bring in terms of the art comes through even when I’m teaching clinical psychology because, for me, those are very integrated.

Candice Wu 7:21

Yeah. Well, I guess I’d like to start with something that really caught me when I was reading a little bit into your bio, is that your story? Sounds like your family ancestry and lineage story of double migration really informs how you show up in the world and your work. And I’d love to hear that story as much or as little as you want to share here.

Rahul Sharma 7:49

Oh, you know, thank you for asking. So yeah, my ethnic heritage is Punjabi, so both my ancestry on both sides, my father’s side, my mother’s side originally comes from Punjab, Jammu, Kashmir in Northern India. And my father’s father wrote down His life story, the year I was born. And when, you know, for me, as somebody who identifies as Indian American, you know, a lot of Indian Americans go back to India, if they have the means, every year, every two years, every three years. And for me, it was going back to Kenya, sometimes three to six months at a time growing up, the best part being missing loads of school.

Rahul Sharma 8:42

So yeah, that was — those quite enjoyable. But, you know, it wasn’t till 1992, I graduated college, and I went to India for the first time. And I also got a hold of my grandfather’s life story that he had written in the year I was born, the stories just blew me away. And so if I may, I can, I’d like to share the story of my grandfather.

Candice Wu 9:14

I would love to hear it. Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 9:17

So you know, growing up in rural Punjab with the British having colonized India and Kenya, he didn’t see any economic prospects for him. In fact, you know, growing up in the village, he didn’t even have a primary education. So one day, he’s visiting a classroom, and he must be maybe 10 years old and the schoolmaster sees my father and sees that he’s standing in this classroom, with these younger boys in class, so he assumed, you know, my grandfather must be from a later grade and ask the boys to ask him a question. My grandfather didn’t know the answer and the boy started laughing. And my grandfather came home and he was incredibly humiliated. And his parents, my great grandparents were so hurt to see him like that they pleaded with the school, can we find a way to give him a basic education. So he started going to school.

Rahul Sharma 10:21

Fast forward a few years, he hears about a distant relative that had found some economic prospect working as an indentured servant for the British on the railway in East Africa. So he was set, this is what I’m going to do and his parents were against it, they were against it, and he just was determined to go, so the day he was leaving, my great grandparents took him to a remote part of the village where they had kept their ancestral savings, and it must have been like $1.50, like, very little money, but they gave it all to him and said: Go! You know, you have our blessing, you know, wishing you the best.

Candice Wu 11:03

Wow.

Rahul Sharma 11:04

So, he ends up working for a Sikh fuel contractor, and Bishen Singh is the guy’s name. And one day my grandfather and some other laborers are walking across the railway and they’re stopped by a British military officer, Captain Macstead. And my understanding is Captain, and this is my recollection from reading this story, is that Captain Macstead said: Hey, you know, I want you all to work for the military, we’ll pay you better. And my grandfather said: Well, we can’t. We’re under contract to work for Bishen Singh.

Rahul Sharma 11:46

And for three years, and this military officer gut was infuriated. And he said: I demand to see this Bishen Singh and, of course, Bishen Singh hadn’t done anything wrong, he just had this contract. But I think that this British military officer, just, you know, like, who is this guy to sort of get in my way? So in the public square, he grabbed Bishen Singh by the beard and shook him violently, and just abused him in public, and Bishen Singh was so freaked out that he just didn’t want to be seen in public after that.

Rahul Sharma 12:24

So soon afterward, the Germans blow up a portion of the railway and this Captain Macstead, blames Bishen Singh, my grandfather, and all the laborers of harboring with the enemy, and they round up all of them. Three of my grandfather’s friends are shot, they’re executed without a trial. And my grandfather was lucky where he got, there was a change in the chief magistrate, the judge, and so my grandfather got a trial. And these military officers stopped my grandfather and said: Look, some of your friends are already dead, why don’t you just say that you guys did it, if you say anything else we’ll kill you.

Rahul Sharma 13:14

So my grandfather gets into the courtroom and he says, these people want me to put innocent Indian names to shame and I’ll never do it. You can do whatever you want with me but I’ll never do it. And then a doctor stood up and testified, saying, I don’t think we can kill him. He doesn’t even look like he’s 18 years old, and so what they did was they sentenced my grandfather to 10 years hard labor and he ended up serving three and got out after three years.

Candice Wu 13:47

Wow.

Rahul Sharma 13:48

That was obviously just reading that and realizing what my grandfather had gone through, and then eventually made his way from the coast of Kenya to Nairobi to work, you know, open up his grocery store, and was able to send my father and a couple of his siblings to England for schooling, and that’s where my father got his Ph.D., you know, had met my mother, my mother was pursuing science and they were living in Nairobi, my father was lecturing at the University of Nairobi, and my sisters were born there.

Rahul Sharma 14:24

And a guy comes up to my father says, you know, how would you like a job at Western Michigan University? And my father was, like, let’s go, let’s do this. So my brother and I were born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. And as I sometimes tell my students, you know, my sisters were born in Nairobi, and I was born in Kalamazoo, and I’ll never forgive my sisters for that. Not to knock the Midwest, but my personal opinion is it’s a little bit cooler to be born in Nairobi. But seriously, just that legacy and that history, that’s a part of, and then, of course, you know, me growing up in a different era in the Midwest, but also realizing that I come from this family background, where this is our ethnic history, but also this is where we relocated to and just interacting with different people, through these different experiences helped to form my interest. And the way I, as you say, show up in the world.

Candice Wu 15:28

Wow, that’s a really incredible story. How did you feel when you read it, your grandpa’s story? That just sounds like such a really interesting experience. You know, not everyone has a piece of writing from their ancestor.

Rahul Sharma 15:43

Yeah. Well, it was an incredible feeling. And by the way, I don’t know if you can hear the dog barking at the mailman.

Candice Wu 15:50

I can, a little.

Rahul Sharma 15:52

Yeah. It’s not you. It’s not your question. I just want to assure you that.

Rahul Sharma 15:57

But well, one of the things that — well obviously that had a huge impact on me just that story, and just, you know, thinking about that, like, what if those kids hadn’t laughed at my grandfather and my grandfather didn’t get that education? Would I be born in India? Would I not have existed because the stars didn’t align that way, you know, what happened? Obviously, you know, we know what would happen if my grandfather had been executed.

Rahul Sharma 16:26

But that palpable awareness about, you know, issues of oppression, in my relatively recent and family history, I think that had a big impact on me. But also, I was reading this at a time, Candice, when I was going through my own identity crisis. Because being born and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan, I think our family has always had a strong identity of being proud of who we are, and proud of our uniqueness and what we bring to the table. But at the same time, I think I grew up in an era and in a way where I didn’t embrace thinking of myself as a person of color. Or, I didn’t think consciously about how issues of race were impacting me and the way I thought about myself.

Rahul Sharma 17:19

So, this story meant so much in terms of, Oh, yeah, I’m not from the United States. My history, my people’s history is really rich and there’s a lot of, you know, really intense, tragic stories, there’s some amazing stories.

Rahul Sharma 17:40

And the thing is my grandfather visited Haridwar, which is where they have, for generations, the most elaborate bookkeeping of genealogy. You just name the village you’re from, and they would bring out books and they would, you know, list your ancestry. And of course, you know, it’s patriarchal so it was a lot of male names. But because of the year my grandfather wrote this down, you know, our actual family clan name is Punj, not Sharma. So, they’re listing —

Candice Wu 18:10

Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 18:10

My ancestors, like, Asa Punj, Diyala Punj, Isher Punj, Jawaharlal Punj, you know, Lalchand Punj, and the last name in that list of nine generations was my name. And so that you can imagine just staring at that manuscript. I was like, whoa, you know, the ninth generation of this incredible list. So that just rocked me to my core.

Candice Wu 18:44

That feels so powerful, and I don’t know, opening.

Rahul Sharma 18:52

Yeah, it definitely created spaces in me that and really, I think fueled my sense of purpose, you know, and solidified what direction I was going in, from college to beyond college.

Candice Wu 19:08

Wow, what a huge transformation because that’s, it’s so a part of you, now, your heritage, who you are, your ethnicity, the culture.

Rahul Sharma 19:18

Absolutely.

Candice Wu 19:19

At least from where I’m standing.

Rahul Sharma 19:21

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think you’re absolutely right. And one of the ways in which I, because I had that moment, where I was like, Oh, my gosh, I’m not from the United States and I realized that nobody would really fuss if I just kind of forgot my, where I came from. Like, you know, my nightmare scenario was having great-great-grandchildren that would one day say, “Oh, yeah, one of my ancestors was Indian, not the feathered kind, the dot kind”, you know.

Candice Wu 19:58

Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 19:58

That sort of snapshot terrified me. So I said, I need to take it upon myself to know where I come from.

Rahul Sharma 20:08

And you know, I played music in high school and in college, so bass guitar, and mainly blues funk, starting to get into reggae a little bit and then I thought what better way to reconnect with my culture than with music. So I picked up first the tableau when I visited India, for the first time was studying tableau, which is the Indian percussion instrument. And then I gravitated towards sitar, which is a North Indian stringed instrument, which I am holding right now.

Candice Wu 20:46

Yeah. Would you like to play a little something?

Rahul Sharma 20:50

Oh my gosh, I thought you’d never ask. OK, now I’m just kidding!

Rahul Sharma 20:53

Yeah. I would love to play.

Candice Wu 20:56

I’m just waiting for it. I just can’t wait.

Rahul Sharma 20:56

All right. So just to set it up. You know, like, I love playing bass guitar. I love playing guitar and you know, I think bass guitar brings out the funk in me, the acoustic guitar brings the country-western playing in me, I sort of like another aspect of my identity because I did grow up here. And, but the sitar sort of, you know, allows me to express myself in a different way. So if it’s all right, I’m just gonna do a little improv. I don’t know what I’m going to play yet, you know, because part of the whole thing about the sitar is in improvisatory musical form. The only thing is you kind of need to stick within the set of notes that you’re, you know, deciding upon playing. So the improvisation works best when it stays within the rog, the structure. And I almost think of it as a spirit or as the great Amjad Ali Khan said in a radio interview, a rag is like a personality. And he says, I wish I could live more than one lifetime because it would take more than one lifetime to truly express the depth of just one rag, which I thought was like, that was mind-blowing.

Rahul Sharma 22:15

So in my humble way, I’m going to, I don’t know what I’m going to share. But this is for your Embody Podcast inspired by what we’re talking about right now.

Candice Wu 25:14

Beautiful. Thank you.

Rahul Sharma 25:15

You’re welcome.

Candice Wu 25:18

I loved it. It was just delightful. I feel so at peace right now.

Rahul Sharma 25:24

Naptime.

Candice Wu 25:26

Right. My eyes were closing, I was swinging my body. I know, as you mentioned, the rag, I remember you talking about that in grad school, the personality of it, and how do you tune into what’s the right rag or sense into that when you begin?

Rahul Sharma 25:48

You know that’s such a great question because, from an Indian classical perspective, they say that these rags correspond to different times of the day, different seasons, you know, this rag should only be played between this time and this time of the day. And they say it’s scientifically based, you know, that the frequencies for determined to this way, but then I asked myself, well, if I’m living in Chicago, and I asked this of Indian classical musician at a question and answer, you know, and these rags were formed in India, did they translate across the world? You know, so I play the rag that was supposed to be played early morning in India, when it’s early morning here? Or, am I supposed to do it at the time zone in India?

Rahul Sharma 26:45

So all of that to say, I think there is something to it. But I also think, studying other forms of music like blues and jazz, and reggae and everything, there’s an authentic frequency. Like, for example, jazz musicians have a different set of guidelines. So when you have a jazz musician jamming with an Indian musician, one of them is really sticking within this melodic structure. And then the jazz musician, that the Indian musician, the jazz musician is kind of breaking some of those rules, but sticking to other guidelines, right? And both of these art forms are valid. So, and to me, that’s the band that I started over 22 years ago, that’s been sort of our dialogue between each other, our dialectic is, how do we create something that feels authentic if we’re crossing genres, and not all of the rules lineup? Is there a deeper type of authenticity that can be maintained? And so anyway, this long, you know, and look, this is what happens when you have a psychologist for a musician, I pontificate.

Rahul Sharma 27:57

Why use five words when I can use five hundred?

Candice Wu 28:00

Right.

Rahul Sharma 28:01

This is why Carlos, our beloved congo player always reminds me less talk more rag. So —

Candice Wu 28:07

Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 28:08

I try to live by that sometimes. But most of the time, I fail.

Candice Wu 28:14

Well, I’m failing with you. Excuse me. I’m failing with you, because my mind just went into like, Ayurveda, and you know, when you were saying, like, the timezones.

Rahul Sharma 28:24

Oh yeah.

Candice Wu 28:24

And then I was like, in my mind trying to sync up with like, the different meridians of the body and the energy channels, and timing of the day and the doshas, is that something that’s in your, in that in alignment?

Rahul Sharma 28:42

Well, yeah, absolutely. To give you a different answer to the question, I think, and this is where I do think, you know, my interest in psychology comes into play. And like, to me, improvising as an artist, it’s this balance between what am I feeling so very personal, and in a way self-absorbed kind of, what’s going to do it for me? What do I want to express? Combined with a sensitivity and the sensibility about what is needed in the moment? What’s the tone that needs to be struck? Which to me, requires attention to the environment, attention to not only what’s happening inside yourself, but if you’re playing with other musicians, what is their vibe, and how can you complement each other? Or, if you’re sitting in front of an audience, we played at City Winery last night, and we did the same thing where we did some improvisation, we didn’t know what we were going to be playing until we played it. Part of it was, what’s my sense of what the room needs right now? So I’ve always been struck by that, that that combination of like, being an artist, in some ways, is simultaneously a very self-absorbed and very selfless endeavor.

Candice Wu 29:59

Yeah, that really makes sense to me. And with both this and the other piece of what you’re saying, how do you blend the different sounds and this, perhaps rules of that sound genre, or artistry, so that there’s some common or some sort of amalgamation of it? And this just lines up with the whole theme of Funkadesi, insisting we all belong? One family.

Rahul Sharma 30:30

Oh, yeah. Wow.

Candice Wu 30:31

Well, it was right on your website and I was like, that’s beautiful.

Rahul Sharma 30:33

Yeah.

Candice Wu 30:34

Like, that is absolutely, what I see and feel when I haven’t been to your concert yet. But I’ve seen you guys on YouTube, and it just feels like that.

Rahul Sharma 30:46

Yeah, so I would say this. That piece kind of ties in with what I’ve been calling like CHIA recipe. You know, I always tell people, look, you know, I’m Indian, I got to represent. So I’m going to share with you my CHIA recipe. And then I thoroughly disappoint people when I let them know that CHIA is actually just an acronym. So it’s CHAI. And to me, it’s compassion, humility, accountability, and insistence.

Rahul Sharma 31:20

So and I, you know, I’ve been reflecting on this, is things that can be helpful for us as healers in psychology, but also, especially when we’re thinking about issues of diversity and social justice, obviously, compassion, you know, guided by that phrase by Wendy Mass: Be kind for everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Right? And I think when, we never fully understand another person’s context, but there’s a lot that happens when we lead with compassion. And the age is humility. Humility to me is sorely missing in a lot of spaces in my humble opinion.

Rahul Sharma 32:05

You know, I think people get defensive when they feel like they’re being taken down a notch. Well, who are you to say x about me? Who are you to call me out on this? And I think there’s some validity to that. We’re living in an era, well, not even just now, but, you know, I was at the University of Michigan in the era of identity politics, when it was in its heyday. And even then, you know, and now there’s this sense of, well, this is what’s wrong with you, this is what you need to be doing. You know, social media really exacerbates it, and I participate in that sometimes, and it’s, you know, and then I don’t like myself, after working towards like, man, how much of this was me really just needing to take this person down a notch? You know?

Rahul Sharma 32:56

So to me, the humility is, are you as willing to hold yourself accountable to the same degree that you’re expecting someone else to be accountable to you? To me, that’s the humility. And of course, that jumps right into the next one, A is accountability. You know, that phrase that we talked about a lot: intent versus impact. You know, when interacting with somebody, are you more focused on your intentions and trying to defend your intentions? Or, are you able to clear yourself out and hold yourself accountable to the impact you had on other people? So I think that’s another piece of it. And then that last part, which, once again, it was my long-winded way of responding to your thing about like insisting, so that to me, the I is the insistence. Yeah. Wait, what was that question? Oh, yeah.

Candice Wu 33:50

Yeah, I thought I was going to get a cup of tea here, like, a little recipe for a cup of tea.

Rahul Sharma 33:57

Yeah. Where’s that? By the way? I do, I make a kick-ass cup of CHAI as well. So there’s always that option.

Candice Wu 34:06

There’s always that for next time.

Rahul Sharma 34:08

Yeah, there’s a next time.

Candice Wu 34:09

I have a cup of water here. It’s not quite the same.

Rahul Sharma 34:12

That’s so funny.

Rahul Sharma 34:14

But so the insistence is like, it’s nice to be compassionate. It’s nice to be humble. But we are living in a world with unjust systems are always in operation. And you know, that whole thing is like, it’s not possible to be a non-racist, you need to be anti-racist. Because to recognize that racism is operating at every level, it’s so important that you are active in saying that, like, you know, if you’re silent, and you’re like, “Oh, well, you know, I’m just going to keep my head down”, or “I’m going to make sure I don’t say or do bad things”, that’s not enough.

Rahul Sharma 34:52

So insistence can mean a few things. But one thing is insisting on speaking to things that need to be spoken to. Sometimes, you know, nobody brings up that might be sexist, that might be homophobic, that might be whatever and it’s that silence, that sort of ends up colluding with this unequal power system and keep things the way they are.

Rahul Sharma 35:18

So to me, the insistence is like you give sometimes you got to make sure you put things on the table, or you make sure that you keep things on the table when they need to be addressed. So insisting on each other’s full humanity. I mean, I can go off on this whole thing, but like, you know, I think about one of the insidious ways, and I will apparently: one of the insidious ways in which oppression operates in my observation is that some people get the default benefit of full humanity. Right?

Rahul Sharma 35:56

Whiteness, maleness, heterosexuality, all of these things where you’re in the center of that power structure. Right? And again, I’m not talking about particular individuals, I’m talking about systems of privilege. And I think it’s invisible to many of us. Right? That this sense of —

Candice Wu 36:14

Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 36:14

Well, of course, so and so gets the benefit of complexity and full humanity. So to me, the insistence is insisting on that full humanity for everybody.

Candice Wu 36:29

I think that’s so important. And, you know, we hear about compassion a lot. Not to, like, I love this combination of CHAI here. Humility, a little less so but —

Rahul Sharma 36:41

It’s delicious.

Candice Wu 36:43

Right, it’s delicious. Accountability, we hear of that a lot. But insistence I don’t, it’s not something that’s just quite present to me. But actually, it has been lately. And now that you bring it up, it reminds me of my time in Ireland recently, last January, where, or this January, where I was working with horses very closely, and not writing but working with horsemanship and leadership with horses and interaction with them, and insistence came up a lot. And I bring this up now because it was such a challenging thing if I maybe got a little activated or something wasn’t on the inside was happening for me to insist on something in the interaction with the horse, but also be responsive to what the horse was bringing, and how they were and not lose sight of what I was insisting on. And then also adjusting if the insistence was too much, like a, five steps ahead of where we were, but insisting on something to be learned.

Rahul Sharma 37:54

Absolutely. It sounds like yeah, mutual accountability. I mean, there, you know, saying what it is that you need to say or indicating what you need to indicate, but also leaving space for what you’re getting back.

Candice Wu 38:10

Right. Yeah. And I think it’s a really challenging thing. This is just what I’m seeing, especially on social media, where we might be holding each other accountable. But doing it in a way that’s just repeating the cycle of the hurt, may be coming with an attack, or it may be perceived as an attack. It’s so challenging.

Rahul Sharma 38:33

It’s challenging. You know, when I hear you say that, it makes me think, which is a whole other conversation, but a model that I find very helpful in both just general psychology work, but also in thinking about the complexities of diversity, social justice issues, is the internal family systems model.

Candice Wu 38:55

Yes. I wanted to talk to you about that.

Rahul Sharma 38:57

Yeah. So, you know, but hearing you say that Candice, you know, there is a language or I should say, a process we can follow where you acknowledge that you have different parts of yourself and each of us do, and how do you take responsibility for those parts without having to feel like that one part of you is the sum total of you, you know? So how do you communicate that a part of you is feeling hurt, a part of you is feeling angry, a part of you feeling attacked by another person. And I find this helpful, just this morning was doing couples work where that was a part of what we were doing, was being able to acknowledge that we have different parts of ourselves, and how do you communicate through that? And again, according to the model, compassion is one of the key ingredients.

Candice Wu 39:58

Isn’t it such a relief to be able to communicate that way? Because when we say, I don’t know, I’m feeling X, Y, or Z. It’s just much more complex than that and to feel like we have to be all in one basket like that is just so reducing. Because we have all these different parts of us that are such a relief to say, Oh, this one part is feeling this, but this one is not, or this one is feeling something else. And it just opens up the whole thing.

Rahul Sharma 40:27

Absolutely.

Candice Wu 40:28

Yeah. So I want to go back to belonging, because I think it’s such a beautiful thing that you’re bringing forward and your band is bringing forward, you have the question that you carry, how do we increase the sense of belonging to each other? And what have you found? What in your experience has been supportive to that?

Candice Wu 40:48

I know it’s a big question? It’s like —

Rahul Sharma 40:50

Yeah, no, well, hey, look, the bands have been together over 22 years.

Candice Wu 40:55

What have you felt in 22 years?

Rahul Sharma 40:59

So yes, I can tell you. I’ll tell you this. I had nothing yet. Candice, I’m waiting till year twenty-three. No, I’m just kidding.

Candice Wu 41:08

Okay, no problem. Compassion, humility.

Rahul Sharma 41:12

Yeah, so — Exactly. But I would say, I think there’s been this shared vibe amongst members of the band, you know, and, of course, a part of me over there. So there we go with our parts, a part of me would love to take all the credit for this. And, I will say, I feel like, yeah, there are definitely some things that I saw as priorities in the atone that I wanted to set. But to be honest, you know, I got so much more, something so much bigger from each band member, which was amazing. But I think this shared sense of, we’re going to accept. If I come from my Indian context, someone else comes from African American, you know, Jamaican, Latino, whatever, you know, cultural context, this recognition that you know what, I am not going to second guess the wisdom of your cultural context. I’m going, in fact, not only am I going to tolerate it, not only am I going to accept it, but I am going to cherish it. I’m going to embrace it as something that, you know, I don’t want to co-opt it, I don’t want to, you know, appropriate it. But I want to affirm you, and what you’re bringing, and your artistic self is bringing to the table. And we do that through music. And I think its allowed a band of 10 people to stay together 22 plus years, is whoever wants to stop something that feels so affirming, I think there’s something about what happens when you don’t feel like you have to leave a part of yourself at the door when you come to the table, to get a seat at the table, you need to leave a part of your identity behind.

Candice Wu 43:06

Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 43:07

To me, Funkadesi is a musical embodiment of, you know, and I was talking about this, you know, if we’re on stage, and all sudden, the two, you know, Maninder and Inder in the band start singing the Punjabi song and it wasn’t part of what we were doing before, to see the rest of the band’s natural inclination to just like, drop what they’re doing and support that. It’s just, it’s a beautiful thing.

Candice Wu 43:32

That is beautiful.

Rahul Sharma 43:33

So I think there’s this space. Yeah, there’s a space where we just, you know, we affirm each other. We affirm each other’s cultural context, we accept each other as kin. You know, that’s why that phrase: One family, many children, is there.

Candice Wu 43:50

Beautiful.

Rahul Sharma 43:51

So I would say that’s one thing that we learned.

Candice Wu 43:53

I love it.

Rahul Sharma 43:54

I came across an article recently, I think, on LinkedIn, that was, had a really compelling, you know, model which was saying, instead of a circle, when we create a community, how about a U-shape, because a U-shape leaves room for more people to come in, whereas a circle might be intimidating to some people. And I just immediately thought of the band, you know?

Candice Wu 44:21

Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 44:22

And so I was thinking about it and we’re talking with band members last night and came up with this notion, like, enroll in Funkadesi, U, it’s shaped like the U because YOU are welcome. I know, it’s a little cheesy. I try to sneak that in there.

Candice Wu 44:38

That’s great. But it fits.

Rahul Sharma 44:42

Oh, yeah, I was going to say last night, we were sound checking for our show and there’s an Indian woman that’s, I think she was friends or she either worked at City winery, or she was friends with one of the people that was working there. And she’s just like, in a daze, just walking to the stage, and just like I think her spirit just leaped out and she just said, You don’t know how much I need this. This sounds like home to me. You know, and the fact that we’re able to do that for people of many different backgrounds.

Rahul Sharma 45:14

You know, our first college show was January 1997, University of Chicago, co-sponsored by the South Asian Student Association, the organization of black students, the Latin American cultural student groups, and the Persian cultural society. And the fact that first of all, we could, you know, they’re doing an event that these four groups wanted to co-sponsor together. And then for everybody to walk away saying, that reflected me. You know, it’s just, you know, it’s just a beautiful thing. It’s a privilege.

Candice Wu 45:52

The resonance, like, to be for both you and your group and everyone involved in experiencing it to be seen, in a way or to be felt like you were seeing and belong.

Rahul Sharma 46:06

Yes. To be seen, to, yes, to be heard, to be affirmed. Absolutely.

Candice Wu 46:14

Yeah. Beautiful. It’s such a healing space.

Rahul Sharma 46:19

Yeah. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we have many healers in the band, you know, nurses, physical therapists, ophthalmologist, energy healers, you know, it feels every time we play show, it feels like, yeah, and again, I don’t want to sound overblown, what we’re doing or anything, but I’m just saying what it feels like, it feels like a cleansing when we play, and the kind of connection that happens within audiences, it feels pretty special.

Candice Wu 46:51

It’s amazing. I can’t wait to come out to a show.

Rahul Sharma 46:55

Yeah, you got to.

Candice Wu 46:57

Yeah, I know. I don’t know, even though why I haven’t been yet. But thank you for sharing all that. You know, I’m curious, Rahul, where are you now in your journey of yourself and of life, you know, aside from these pieces of artistry?

Rahul Sharma 47:19

Well, the first thing comes to mind is I turned 50 this May. So I’m thinking a lot about where I’ve been and where I’m heading. So, I am married, I have two children, a 10th-grade daughter, and an eighth-grade son, we moved to Evanston three years ago, and really enjoying being a part of the community here, in particular, seeing my children find their place. So there’s a lot of meaning for me in seeing my children follow their passion. And, you know, and my life partner and I, staying close to what we are passionate about, what gives us meaning.

Rahul Sharma 48:10

So, life is really good, you know. And I think it’s become more and more clear to me, we haven’t really talked about this, but last few years, really, the integration of healing and the work that needs to be done around diversity and social justice, inclusion, equity, and music have been coming together in a very meaningful way for me.

Candice Wu 48:46

Merging.

Rahul Sharma 48:47

Yeah, so it started with the band playing, well, I insisted that the band played the multicultural summit, which is you know, APA is the, all the bigwigs in the field of multicultural psychology that, you know, put together this conference every other January, and I went to one in Seattle, my colleague, Charles Davis, Dr. Davis told me about this conference that I should be going to, and the first one I went to, I was just blown away by it. And so I was like, you know, they have this part of it called the elders’ ceremony, where, instead of calling it a Lifetime Achievement Award, you know, I have to felt like, it was, this is so much more of a culturally meaningful way of honoring people’s achievements. So it’s called the elder ceremony and I was just blown away by that ceremony. So much so that when I found out the conference was in New Orleans, two years later, I just lobbied the heck out of the conference organizers saying, we need the band to come down there. And we would love to, we’d be honored to play multicultural drums for the elders’ ceremony.

Rahul Sharma 49:57

So I ended up doing something I never do, which is to take a lot of my own money and fly the band out there. Because it’s hard with the budget that they had, you know, we did a cultural recovery concert at the House of Blues. But still, you know, it was a lot of money in the hole. So I was like —

Candice Wu 50:19

Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 50:20

There was a gamble, but —

Candice Wu 50:22

But it was that meaningful.

Rahul Sharma 50:22

It was meaningful and they were honoring that year, Derald Wing Sue, Charles Silverstein, Bonnie Strickland, AJ Franklin, Janet Helms, Florence Denmark, and I knew what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted the band to march with our multicultural drums, announced the elders and bring them all into the main hall of like, five, six hundred people, and then we’re going to line up on the side and do a cultural rhythm every time one of them was being honored.

Rahul Sharma 50:56

So of course, you know, I, it was clear to me what we’re doing. But these folks were like, wait, what’s going on? What’s happening? So, all sudden, they’re being shuffled into a boiler room closet, and you know, and these are people that like, I use in the classes I teach up, like, you know, so that we and a couple of them are looking kind of annoyed, like, why are we standing here with these drummers and what are we waiting for? Because, you know, I was like, No, they can’t be seen until they get announced. And then finally, Derald Wing Sue literally the godfather of the work on microaggressions, like, first I’m whispering to the musicians like, that guy, that’s week three of my class. That’s what I teach in week three. And then —

Candice Wu 51:49

Yeah. I was just thinking that. I was like, I think I know that from one of your classes or something.

Rahul Sharma 51:55

And Derald Wing Sue finally kind of says, what are we doing here anyway? I just whisper sideways, he’s week seven.

Rahul Sharma 52:08

So that explains everything and then the whole thing was such a hit that the President of the American Psych Association, James Bray, comes up to me, so like, we got to have breakfast tomorrow. And over breakfast the next day, he says, I need your band to set the tone for the APA convention next year. So he flew, APA flew us out to do the opening ceremonies in Toronto. And then two years later, Dr. Melba Vasquez invited us to do the opening ceremonies in D.C.

Rahul Sharma 52:44

So my head exploded officially by you know, those two worlds coming together and ever since then, Candice, it’s been really, how do we use experiential multicultural drumming and other arts modalities as vehicles for having much needed difficult dialogues and various topics.

Rahul Sharma 53:11

So just over a year ago, for example, there was a domestic violence conference, it was actually for practitioners that work with male batterers and agencies that work with batterers in Michigan. One hundred eighty people at the conference, it was in Detroit and we end up doing this workshop, an experiential plenary, where I’m addressing one hundred eighty people and the similar question you asked me like, what have you guys learned?

Rahul Sharma 53:40

You know, it’s me, talking about what the band has learned over our decades together, and how it translates to the learning objectives of the conference. And what I said though, is, like, I said, telling you what we learned, we want you to experience it, the only catch is it took us 21 years, and we’re only giving you an hour. But what we did was we had the four drummers of the band, the four rhythm ambassadors, take each group of 35 people. In fact, I took a fifth group with tambourines and cowbells because you can never have enough cowbell. And —

Candice Wu 54:21

Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 54:22

So you — thirty-five people are going to go out with Carlos and he’s going to teach you the Latin Clave rhythm, you thirty-five people are going to learn the Brazilian Samba rhythm, you thirty-five people are going to learn the West African Lamba rhythm and you thirty-five people are going to learn the North Indian Bhangra rhythm. And what we’re going to do is after fifteen minutes, we’re going to collect all the groups into the big room, and we’re going to try to create the Indo-Afro Caribbean rhythmic connection.

Rahul Sharma 54:51

And it was amazing. It was, you know, people came together, I have a video of it on YouTube, and it was just an incredible experience and the best part was me standing there in a room full of exhilarated folks asking the question, what did you experience? And I wasn’t asking for one-word responses. But the crowd just started giving one-word answers like joy, diversity, hope, empowerment, you know, all of these words that they were just, you know, feeling from the moment and then I got back to the podium and put up a few slides and was able to connect what they were saying and what the experience was to some of the ingredients, you know, like the CHAI recipe and the different things that we have reflected down over the decades.

Candice Wu 55:47

I can see how that’s a huge cleansing.

Rahul Sharma 55:49

Yeah.

Candice Wu 55:50

It’s like the group cleanse within the experience, and that just opens up.

Rahul Sharma 55:56

Absolutely, and then in the afternoon, we did smaller group sessions, still, maybe thirty people and this is where I integrate what I do with the band in our own style of doing things with a protocol that I got trained on, which is called HealthRHYTHMS by Remo drums, where they really sort of brought together the best of practices in facilitated drum circle, movement, work, as well as what music therapists have been doing for decades.

Rahul Sharma 56:27

So imagine being in a circle, everyone has a drum, and you say, can you share your name and do you mind showing us what your name sounds like on the drum? And then as a facilitator, you’ve asked after they drum their name, do you mind if the group drums your name with you? So right from the get-go, just that exercise and as a facilitator, I just, and a musician, I just loved learning this protocol, because what a beautiful way of a sonic affirmation of every person’s identity.

Candice Wu 56:59

Yes.

Rahul Sharma 57:00

And then there’s the whole element of like, the neuropsychological processing that goes beyond just using your intellect, drumming together —

Candice Wu 57:10

The mirroring, the resonance. Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 57:13

Yes, so much, so much happening.

Candice Wu 57:15

And when someone’s drumming to what you created.

Rahul Sharma 57:18

Exactly.

Candice Wu 57:19

What you shared of yourself. Wow.

Candice Wu 57:22

It reminds me of something that’s been very healing for me is tuning into either my own or a piece of my ancestor, that I perceive what their soul song is, or what my soul song is, and however that sounds or what my soul dances like, with the movement that might come through, that really speaks to me, and I love this exercise with the drums, with your name. It’s beautiful.

Rahul Sharma 57:51

Whoa, that’s so cool, Candice, I’m gonna have to steal it.

Candice Wu 57:55

Go for it. I might steal yours as well.

Rahul Sharma 58:00

Right, of course. Hey, man, there’s that phrase in the blues if you like it, steal it.

Candice Wu 58:04

Exactly. And you know what, I was thinking you might, I know, it kind of sounds stupid but you might be starting to call your drum circles, Drum U’s.

Rahul Sharma 58:14

Drum U’s. Oh.

Candice Wu 58:16

Drum U’s. Like the U shape? But then it sounds a little awkward, right?

Rahul Sharma 58:22

No. I’m already planning. No, I like it.

Candice Wu 58:26

Trying to figure it out.

Rahul Sharma 58:28

Yeah, I’m trying to figure that one out. But no, that sounds great. After reading that article, it made me think of instead of Drum circles, absolutely the Drum U’s, which leaves an open space. And also I, last multicultural summit, I went to in January, there was an indigenous woman that was talking about indigenous practices in Canada and she was, and healing work and she was talking about how important it is to not just be face to face with somebody to sort of be adjacent to somebody for a couple of reasons. One is to allow yourself to not necessarily absorb entirely another person’s energy, but always to remind yourself that there’s you, the other person, but there’s the earth, that’s holding the two of you. And so that you, kind of almost goes along with that, that notion of like, you know, we’re not just enclosed in this circle. But we’re, there’s that sort of acknowledgment of that, that fourth side or whatever, however, you want to describe that.

Candice Wu 59:35

Yeah, I love that, especially the earth that’s holding you as that resource that’s always there, the connection.

Rahul Sharma 59:44

Absolutely.

Candice Wu 59:45

Beautiful.

Rahul Sharma 59:46

So I told you that one exercise just real quick the — I have, I was able to do a workshop with some colleagues and artists, friends of mine, for YWCA, where it was, the theme was reimagining racial justice. And we did a drum circle format and I incorporated some of this work, you know, some of the remote health reasons protocol, some of what the band members do, and what they bring to the table.

Rahul Sharma 1:00:17

And being in a space where you’re playing music together and also being insistent, you know, in terms of the facilitation questions about our own growing edge, around issues of oppression, about parts of ourselves that, you know, are still hung up on aspects of this work that are under work, and that we really need to work on, to me, it’s so powerful. That phrase, breaking bread together. So you know, different analogies, like you know, when you make music together, and then you’re more open, and then you have these conversations. I, it’s been my experience that we can go a lot further when we have opened things up in this way and we’ve played together musically.

Rahul Sharma 1:01:09

It still requires, I think, some heavy-duty facilitating because, you know, somebody still might not say, they still might say something or do something that’s really ignorant or like have a part of them that’s really dealing with some hateful, ignorant stuff. But creating a space where we can address that, I think is really important. And I appreciate what the drums do in that setting, when we do it with a lot of care.

Candice Wu 1:01:39

I really appreciate that you’re highlighting this, and how you’re bringing that experience to so many places, it makes so much sense to bring a coming together experience that anyone can access, a language we can all feel into and then going into the harder thing gives so much more grounding and resource to the thing you want to perhaps tackle together, that might be more uncomfortable.

Rahul Sharma 1:02:11

Exactly. But again, Candice, it goes back to the humility and the accountability and the mutual accountability where, if I truly am living by that notion of like, you know, it could be you calling me out on another issue. You know, it’s not coming with this holier than now, like, yeah, I mean, I often find myself that I’ve thought about certain things a lot longer and harder than other people have. But when I think of all the jackass things I’ve said and done, and still, you know, and painful reminders that it’s an ongoing process for me. It’s hard for me to feel genuine in saying, well, here I am the expert and you need a tune-up.

Candice Wu 1:02:55

Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 1:02:56

And that’s the end of the story. You know, is there a way we can —

Candice Wu 1:03:02

Right.

Rahul Sharma 1:03:02

Be insistent with — and you know, if somebody’s going to put up their walls of defensiveness, hostility, shame, other forms of resistance, that’s on them, but I’m going to let them know that I’m coming at them with a great deal of respect. But again, insistence at the same time.

Candice Wu 1:03:21

Well, it just makes me think about the idea that if we disconnect from parts of ourselves, like a past self, that has been a jackass or whatever, or maybe has been ignorant, or even parts of ourselves now, and just go from one part of ourselves, we can be really arrogant.

Rahul Sharma 1:03:42

Absolutely.

Candice Wu 1:03:43

Or, holier that’s what you said, you know, but if we are embracing of all, if we can, you know, many parts as we can, it’s like, how can you possibly come with disrespect or feeling better than someone else? Because we’re all human, we’ve all been there in some way, in some format.

Rahul Sharma 1:04:07

Exactly.

Candice Wu 1:04:09

Thank you so much for sharing today. I love hearing that you’re from Michigan. I’m from Michigan too. I don’t know if you knew that. Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 1:04:18

Where in Michigan?

Candice Wu 1:04:19

I grew up in Rochester.

Rahul Sharma 1:04:22

Oh, cool.

Candice Wu 1:04:23

Yeah. So in some ways, we’ve had a similar crossover of immigration to Michigan and the feeling of it would have been cooler to be born somewhere else. I can resonate with that, too. But now that you’re, I know you’re from Michigan, it’s even better to be from Michigan. But yeah. Well, is there anything else you want to share today? Is there anything else that’s bringing you alive right now?

Rahul Sharma 1:04:51

I think this is it and maybe if you don’t mind while you’re rolling the credits, haha, with this audio podcast, I’ll maybe just play another short something.

Candice Wu 1:05:02

I’d love that.

Candice Wu 1:05:03

Yeah, I’m just going to sit and listen and then credits can roll later if we want it to cross over.

Rahul Sharma 1:05:09

That sounds great.

Candice Wu 1:05:10

Or there — silence might be great with it.

Rahul Sharma 1:05:12

Right. Listen, thank you so much, Candice. It was really, it was so much fun talking to you.

Candice Wu 1:05:19

It was so much fun talking to you, too and thank you for all the wisdom you shared and just your energy. And I appreciate you. Thanks.

Rahul Sharma 1:05:28

Thanks.

Candice Wu 1:06:53

I love these questions that Rahul’s asking, how can we insist on belonging? How can we create more spaces where we can bring more of ourselves? And what do we do to have the difficult conversations? How can we play with it and connect on different levels?

Candice Wu 1:07:11

Thank you so much for joining us today and I want to thank Rahul for bringing his life and his sitar and his music, and the beauty in him in sharing that with us today. It’s truly a special thing to be able to invite my teachers on the show because they have influenced me just being in their presence gives me an energetic download of new information of love, of new ideas and ways of being that I’ve taken in along the way.

Candice Wu 1:07:41

So I thank Rahul for that and for being part of my own journey.

Candice Wu 1:07:45

I appreciate you joining us to connect in on this beauty and to enjoy this with me. It’s such a treat to have this music on the show and I hope you enjoy this tail end of the show where we just spotlight Rahul’s music in this improvisational, creative, lively moment.

Candice Wu 1:08:05

Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today and if you’d like to know more about the podcast or receive self-love notes and newsletters and information from me, feel free to connect up with me on my website at CandiceWu.com/embody. See you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00
This episode is with special guest Aleta Cai who is a New York City based healer and dominatrix combining her experiences in a unique form of somatic and energetic healing. In this episode, we talked about permission for pleasure and sensuality, shifting the beliefs around sexuality, how she uses BDSM techniques to awaken the energy of the sacral area, self-love, Kundalini awakenings, showing up in the world versus hiding and shifting the belief sets of lineage and culture around sexuality. This episode may not be for all audiences, please use your own discretion. If you're uncertain whether these topics will trigger you, you can check in with the show notes which will give you a heads up about certain sensitive topics. You can find these show notes at CandiceWu.com/Aleta.

Candice Wu 0:52
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 1:06
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 1:27
Before we jump into the episode, today, I want to share with you a recent passion project of mine, which is sharing about Dream Work. I love Dream Work. It has given me so much connection with myself, my wisdom and all these energies that may be hidden and discarded or unrevealed to me. And when I tap into my dreams, even when they seem weird, mundane or even terrifying, sometimes, I glean an entire world of wisdom and my own power that I can bring into my life. And so this passion project is a series of dream classes on Skillshare. So, these are dream classes that are in video form and the first one's already out there. It's about how to remember and awaken your dream life. The basics about recording your dreams and how to best remember that when you wake up.

Candice Wu 2:29
And a second one is out there about creating the blueprint of the physiology that will allow your dream life to flourish. These include specific breathing techniques, yogic and body center practices, as well as meditations that you can use to ground yourself and develop the safety and playfulness for your dream life to thrive. So, all of these will help your nervous system feel supported in deep rest and relaxation and giving the capacity for you to remember your dreams better than before.

Candice Wu 3:03
You can find those classes as well as a Skillshare offer that can give you either a couple of free months or a couple of months for 99 cents at CandiceWu.com/dreamphysiology. Any money that I make from Skillshare from these classes will go straight towards the podcast and in creating more classes that you and others can enjoy and also learn from. I hope you enjoy the class and the classes that are coming up around Dream Work and please share if you feel inspired to with anyone that loves Dream Work or wants to get involved in their own dream life.

Candice Wu 3:44
I loved this conversation with Aleta. It was so much fun and we talked about so many different topics related, all related to each other, all related to loving ourselves, all related to the human condition and all the parts of ourselves that might show up and that we can utilize to know ourselves more deeply. Eleta Cai is a New York-based healer and dominatrix who combines her experiences in a very unique form of somatic and energetic healing. And she focuses on embodiment, empowerment and processing trauma. And through her methodology of integrating submission, her clients are able to surrender into their own vulnerabilities in a transformative way.

Candice Wu 4:28
Aleta holds a BA in Psychology as well as an MA in Film Studies both from NYU. And after a few years of working in fashion, she followed her curiosity and fear into a BDSM dungeon. And this ignited a path of healing and integration she never foresaw. And she not only learned the ropes there but learn the ropes for a new way of understanding the human condition. She had a Kundalini awakening that further catapulted her towards a colleague of healing and she began her pursuit of the healing arts first through Reiki, hypnosis, clairvoyance, and integrative life coaching. So, I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did, or even more. I love the way Aleta talks about the integration, the crossover of sexuality and power, as well as healing and how all of that can come together. So, let's jump in.

Candice Wu 5:26
Okay, it's fantastic to have you here, Aleta. I'm thrilled that you're on the show. Welcome.

Aleta Cai 5:32
Thank you, I'm really excited to be here.

Candice Wu 5:34
So, I've been following you on Instagram and a friend referred me to you. I just appreciate how vulnerable you share about your personal life, your insights, and the way that you bring together topics that make me think and inspire me, as well as bring together topics around spirituality, sensuality, sexuality, power, loving yourself, all mixed with biology, the unconscious energy in the body. So, you are a New York-based healer and dominatrix and you combine your experiences in a very unique form of somatic and energetic healing. Tell me about that. What brought you here now in your life?

Aleta Cai 6:22
It was just a series of, I suppose the universe, shutting doors and opening windows and kind of following that. And I've initially thought that I wanted to be a professor. Actually, before that I was in fashion, I thought this was it. And then that didn't work out because I really just didn't like the way that women's bodies were being objectified and treated and handled and what the overall message was after that, after the images are created, and then they proliferate in the collective unconscious and body shame women. So, I just said I can't do this anymore and decided, maybe, academia is the right path. And upon following that track, it just was like a giant door shoved in my face basically, like slammed in my face. And I knew that this was not the right track for me.

Aleta Cai 7:12
During this time, I was experimenting a little bit I was freelancing and fashion and in digital. And I just kind of always felt like I wanted to hide a part of myself like to be very secretive about certain things that I did in my life. And one of them was my exploration in a BDSM and dungeon. So, I was a professional dominatrix when I was 24, that's when I started. And I didn't take it very seriously at the beginning. And that was very classic domination, it was just not what I do now, which is a totally different approach. But that's where I really learned the ins and outs of what bondage was, how to flog someone, just a very basic skill sets.

Aleta Cai 7:53
And from that point on, I decided that I would just go independent. So that means that I just would separate myself from the dungeon and become an individual entity, and basically have a private practice. And there is something about just that traditional style of domination that I just didn't resonate with, it was a dead end for me. And that was the point of my life where I had a Kundalini awakening. And suddenly, it was like, it was not only just a dark night of the soul, but it was an ego death. And I let go of so many of my attachments and my narratives. And I realized I'm a healer, I'd always been it just started clicking that I was very empathic, was very intuitive, I was very sensitive my whole life. And these in combination then made me realize, oh, wow, like I actually have energy healing abilities.

Aleta Cai 8:44
And after the Kundalini awakening, my first few sessions, they were like nothing else. It was like suddenly some conduit or some blocks just melted in my body and I was feeling so charged up with all this source energy, Chi or key or whatever it is that was running through me to my clients. And even though it was still very classic BDSM what I was doing, my clients were just like, Whoa, like, Where are you from? What's this energy? They were, they're not very, like, none of them were energetically sensitive people at all. I mean, they're very classic. Like, you remember how a lawyer who was like, What is going on here? He's like, I can feel electricity just shooting down my entire body.

Candice Wu 9:25
Oh, wow!

Aleta Cai 9:26
Yeah.

Candice Wu 9:27
So, you were having these experiences with clients?

Aleta Cai 9:30
Absolutely

Candice Wu 9:31
With your clients? Yeah, wow!

Aleta Cai 9:32
Yeah… It was, like, I was in shock, is like what's going on, I was looking at my hands, it was like jolts of electricity, just washing through me and the other person and seeing the result. I mean, they just look like they transformed. Like it was like, I don't know what happened, but they, just baggage was lifted off of their shoulders, supercharged energy, and I would feel really high afterward. So, I knew from that point on, there is something going on that really a typical but that just became the foundation of what I then developed as a methodology encompassing all the different practices like Reiki, hypnosis, clairvoyance, and then tying that all together with what I knew with my BDSM.

Candice Wu 10:15
Wow. That's incredible.

Aleta Cai 10:17
Thank you.

Candice Wu 10:18
So when, when you were saying you were had the dark night of the soul, and then all this energy was charging through you? What was that experience like for you and what? What broke down inside of you?

Aleta Cai 10:31
I believe now looking back, that awakening or dark night of the soul was a two-year process. And a lot of that was also like, it felt really, really horrible. My mother was really sick. And around the two-year point, she really was on her path towards death. I didn't know what I was going to do, I was clinging on to this, maybe it'd be a professor, but that didn't seem like it was going the right way. And so, it created a sense of struggle and turmoil within where I just felt so incredibly lost.

Aleta Cai 11:07
And I remember going to Japan at that point is not having no sense of what it is that I wanted to do or who I wanted to be. When I came back. I just, I can't even explain the turmoil that I felt it was just like, I can't keep living like this, it got really dark. And so that made me start looking for answers in places that I just didn't even conceive of before, like within the energy medicine field or within, you know, different, different, I guess, Eastern approaches towards healing that were outside of the traditional last year and approach.

Aleta Cai 11:44
And what I ended up finding was a Reiki healer, who kind of just kind of initiated me into this. She really was the first person who dissolved a lot of my blocks and helped me realize what it was that I was coming across. That night when I went home. And I'm remember feeling like my reality had collapsed. I really felt like, with no exaggeration, that I wanted to jump out a window, they had so incredibly bleak and

Candice Wu 12:10
Oh yeah.

Aleta Cai 12:11
Yeah. And the next morning, what was surprising was I woke up and I suddenly felt like it was a new lease on life. It was like something opened, I felt like I was connected to some spirituality that I had never had before I was raised without religion, without spirituality. And I was giggling and laughing and I felt so light, lighter than I'd ever felt in my life. And I just felt like my heart was open. And I was connecting, and just so grateful to be alive. And so, that's really what it felt like it was a profound shift from dark to light.

Candice Wu 12:49
I can really relate to that. I think I've had maybe two phases of that. And it is, you know that saying where, I don't know, it's like something like, when things feel like they're breaking, they're probably breaking open. It just makes me think of that, of how, when the things that we thought we were who we thought we were just breaks and dismantles. It can feel incredibly horrifying and terrifying and then when that clears away, the clutter, as you've said it before, and some of your posts on Instagram, we find ourselves and then we find that lightness and joy, and that laughter. So, I'm just relating to what you said about your story. And it sounds like you're in this path of who you truly, and who you truly are and who you truly want to be.

Aleta Cai 13:54
Absolutely. And it's really, I mean, I feel like the dark night of the soul itself maybe as a second step in the whole spectrum of the whole process of everything about of maybe if it's encapsulated as enlightenment, or just the journey itself. I do feel like what comes after that is just still a series of difficulties and integrations and different ways of understanding, different theories, and philosophies. And it's never-ending.

Candice Wu 14:24
Yeah, that evolution.

Aleta Cai 14:26
Exactly.

Candice Wu 14:28
And during the process of that kind of awakening that's so powerful. What did you do? And what do you to, to support yourself through it?

Aleta Cai 14:38
Initially, I didn't really have any resources whatsoever I, after it happened, I lost the majority of my friends because it was such a radical way of thinking, that they just weren't used to it. I also really needed to self-isolate. I'm not sure if you've had the experience to where it's like suddenly, when this happens, you just want to kind of be by yourself and learn everything that you can about your new cells and your new approach to life. Yeah, so,

Candice Wu 15:08
Very much so.

Aleta Cai 15:09
Right, it's, I think it's a necessary part of the process. And because of that, I didn't really have a lot of support. And I also at that stage, I was very ungrounded, it was like my crown chakra opened, and it opened so wide, that I was just out of my body. So, a lot of it was that and just finding, following my curiosity, again, which is what led me into BDSM. Following my curiosity into learning about Reiki or learning about these different modalities of healing that helped me surround myself with different people who share the same interests. And then from shared conversations, just picking up bits and pieces of what I resonated with, and what I would incorporate into my own practice. And also, I read so much it was like this thirst for new knowledge. So, anything I could get myself hands on, I read everything, I could Google, I googled, I probably Google dark night of the soul, maybe like 100 times.

Aleta Cai 16:06
Just define different ways that people have like lifted. You know, like all my YouTube channels have subscribed to so many of those channeling, channels and I think it's just like going through it. And then also, I feel like the universe supports you in that they, the universe presents you with a series of opportunities to learn. So, whatever it is that you're facing now, whether it be a challenge, or an opportunity, or maybe those are the same things, it's really looking at and distilling what it is that you're learning and picking out those specific pieces that resonate with all the shared experiences to understand what web of development that you're in. And then from that point on, if you can match the next phase of your life cycle, or if you can kind of develop a little bit further after you've, I guess, passed that lesson, then you go on to the next stage. So, I do feel like even if you have no resources, no support, no access to any sort of knowledge. The universe is going to give you that opportunity to have that knowledge just through living.

Candice Wu 17:13
Absolutely. I love that reminder, it feels like just easing in and letting that happen. And listening to those pieces, those signals that are trying to come to you already.

Aleta Cai 17:25
Exactly. That's a really beautiful way to put it. It's just awareness.

Candice Wu 17:29
Yeah, awareness. So, tell me about how you incorporate BDSM now, because it sounds like the way that felt deadening to you, that dead end past two before has really taken a different shape. And you've harnessed those skills and that power in a different way now with your healing work. So, what does that look like?

Aleta Cai 17:58
So the differences would be in the dungeon, it would be a people coming in for maybe like an hour, two hours, some people did longer sessions, but mostly the intention was just to honestly get off. And that was built into the scene. So, even though there weren't any illegal activities, it still felt like it was catering specifically towards and not only just eroticism or sexuality or anything, but just for the aim of an orgasm, which that just didn't sit well with me because I wanted something that was more open-ended and more transformative. And it also felt like a no judgment whatsoever to that type of practice because I, of course, began that way.

Aleta Cai 18:41
I just feel like that creates some sense of dead end or it's just not, it's not really something that can be cathartic. And that's really what I was aiming for in my work. I wanted something that was ongoing that would unfold much like the journey that we all are on. So, when I went into more of a healing route, what I did was isolated all the BDSM components that I had learned in the dungeon. For instance, flogging, whipping, caning, just deciphering what it is these activities were able to do to elicit catharsis. And I really studied a lot with — I met with certain people that I really respected and saw their techniques. So, not only was it looking at building my techniques, but looking at also what other people do to elicit certain reactions like pain reactions, or how do you pace caning so that you can create a body high and what's too much.

Aleta Cai 19:39
So, these were really expansive ways of relating to something which in the dungeon we weren't taught, it was just like, just take this cane and meet this person. And you learn a little basic how to like you basically new, don't beat him here, don't do this there. But that was it. And what I realized was, it is so expansive like you, you can work with the root chakra when it comes to hitting certain spots on a person's but, and it really does work that area where a lot of stress, we hold it, a lot of us hold it in our sacred. So these were just like fine tuning and pulling in and creating more of a larger way of approaching it. That's more therapeutic and origin as opposed to just orgasm base.

Candice Wu 20:20
That's beautiful. It sounds like you really took those skills and refined them and opened up the ways that that can be a channel to opening up who someone is or what's held in the body.

Aleta Cai 20:35
Absolutely.

Candice Wu 20:36
So with that, tell me more about how you use dominance and submission and incorporate that to help your clients surrender into their own vulnerabilities and learn more about themselves?

Aleta Cai 20:52
That's a really great question. So, what I think is that there's one big piece here, which is some of the people who see me, who explore their submission are truly exploring it from a part of their core identities. I do feel like there are some people who are hard-wired to feel more satisfied as a submissive and because of that, because they are given a safe space, they have an opportunity to explore that.

Aleta Cai 21:16
Secondly, I do find that sometimes there are ways that we, I think most people have a certain curated way of behaving in society because of certain rules and certain industries, or certain places and spaces that we all fit in. And unfortunately, a lot of times, these restrict us from exploring the whole spectrum of how we can be, and sometimes impedes, especially these pieces of core identity. So, if we have a context where it's basically decontextualized from the entirety of social expectations, and then we bring it into a really safe space where people can just be themselves and do whatever they want, and incorporate their core identity is, then I feel like that itself is therapeutic, not only for the sub, but for the dom, too.

Aleta Cai 22:06
And then I would also say, in submission, if we're just looking at submission, in this context, in BDSM, it's allowing them to also fall into their sexuality. So, even though this isn't sexual in nature, there is a core part about this being the submission, I do feel like in BDSM and kink are all really tied into sexuality. I do feel like most people have a very primal nature that's already tied into kinks and to non-vanilla types of interactions. Even if they're just tiny, like someone may be like, be choked, or have their hair pulled.

Candice Wu 22:45
It's in our nature to have kinks and to have those be part of what excites us.

Aleta Cai 22:52
Right, right. And given that this is a place where that out in the open, I do feel like people can surrender more to that aspect. And I really look at when I'm looking at power, I'm looking at the power, the life force that's sitting in this sacral chakra, which oftentimes is shut down, especially for women. And also for men, too, that I see, I noticed that there's this pattern of closing off to emotions, as not every man is like this, of course, I'm grossly generalizing. But I do feel like there's a social pressure for masculinity to be closed down, and no emotions are appropriate except for anger. So, when I see men in my practice, I do feel like their life force is also blocked in the sacral chakra, maybe for different reasons or similar reasons.

Aleta Cai 23:37
So, when we're looking at submission, they're sinking into not only their core identities, they're also thinking into the freedom of expression. And also, they're sinking into this layer of sexuality that's inherent in the human condition, in just living day to day and being a person. And when we have all those things address at the same time, that's when I feel like someone can be truly vulnerable. So, it's not just about sharing or being very open, it's truly a state of being where they're receptive, they understand that they're understood and that there's nothing they need to be held to in that moment. And that allows a really deep level of healing because they're very porous, in all ways. And I do find, I also have a vanilla healing practice. And although it's, I don't incorporate BDSM into this practice, what I do find is that people usually have a little more of a difficulty and talking about their relationship to their sexuality to their sexual self. And it's not really focused on that at all. So, that's why I make it kind of a core part of the BDSM experience because then that component, which is so strong, and all of us, it's our will to procreate, to create, to feel and if we can incorporate that then it's more of a holistic approach.

Candice Wu 25:01
I love that, I love how you're describing what's what can be locked into the sacred area, and it was just thinking about second chakra and how its power in relationship. And what you're saying is exactly that like power in relationship to your emotions and what you're you can and you cannot emote, or be or feel through given, you know the constraints of what we've put on ourselves in society

Aleta Cai 25:32
Exactly.

Candice Wu 25:33
But you're unleashing that, and creating that freedom, where that power isn't over you anymore, you harness all of it, you can be all of it.

Aleta Cai 25:45
Exactly. That's really nicely said.

Candice Wu 25:48
This sounds really fun.

Aleta Cai 25:52
It's really fun. It's um, I was thinking that yesterday not to toot my own horn, but I was just thinking like, well, like I'm pretty lucky, just being able to do kind of like, make it my own and make it a place where I can feel like I can express not only my core identity as being a healer, but my, well my core identity as a healer and as a dominatrix.

Aleta Cai 26:14
I do feel like a lot of times, in my practice, I'm also being healed through my relationship, as you say that the sacral chakra is about connection is about relationship. And a lot of this healing, I really feel like is always about the interrelationship of what it is that you're matching and what it is that you are working through in your life. And when you can see it mirrored, it also helps you to release a lot of your own blocks. And it's fun I can where I can dress up as a dominatrix. And I can feel great. And we're latex and where are these like super heels that are six inches tall! What I can't do that in normal-day-life, and I can strut around, and with canes and whips, and I mean, I think it's so, it's like theater in a way but a theater for one.

Aleta Cai 27:03
Meanwhile, I do feel like I'm adding something I'm helping my subs live a healthier life, or at least be more aware of a more comprehensive health and energetic parts of their lives that are so important to living a balanced life. So, I really feel like it's a win-win for everyone. Especially me.

Candice Wu 27:26
That's beautiful. That's beautiful. I think that that's where you know, you've, you're living the life you want because it is for you, and it is forever. Like it's, I guess I want to say it's just not separate, as you're speaking to it's so much your expression and something you love and want to express in you. And then it is mutually, in whatever way it is for the other person or other people. It's mutually as powerful. And healing. So, I think that's just beautiful.

Aleta Cai 28:02
Thank you, you're right about that. It's, um, I do feel like healing is a selfless service. At the same time, I think that there's duality. So all of this selflessness to selfishness to why it is that we are unique individuals wide as we're coming to this earth with certain gifts. And only we have them in combinations that we do. And a lot of that is like not making it about you but also knowing what it is that you have to offer being present, which really is about standing your ground is you. And so, then people can then play off that energy and be able to utilize your energy. In the beginning, I was always really invisible in my work. I didn't think that I needed to be really, like I didn't want it to be about me at all. I disappeared. And I think that was problematic, because then where are you? You're a ghost, you're not really just like adding anything you the actual conversation.

Candice Wu 29:01
Right.

Aleta Cai 29:02
It needs to be a conversation.

Candice Wu 29:04
Absolutely. I mean, I have a very obvious and clear example for that in my life when I first started this podcast, which was about a year ago, I was so afraid of it, I was, I knew I needed to do it. I knew I needed to put my voice out there. But when I was doing interviews, I would just ask one quick question and then disappear. And I would just hope the other person would talk for the rest of the time,

Aleta Cai 29:30
Right!

Candice Wu 29:33
If you're listening to this, you know, or you Aleta, you ever go back to like the early conversations, I love the guests that I had on there. And that's part of why I wanted to give them the space to talk. But a big part of that, too, was me just hiding. Hoping they would take up the space. so I didn't have to and that definitely didn't feel good. And I knew it. I knew it was happening. But it took some time to show up.

Aleta Cai 29:59
Yeah, I definitely feel you on that.

Candice Wu 30:02
Yeah. And how did it go for you to start showing up for yourself and in yourself? What initiated that? or How did you do that?

Aleta Cai 30:14
So, I believe at the very beginning, because I was still coming off as the whole expansive crown chakra opening and I wasn't exactly grounded and I didn't understand the spiritual tenants of being embodied and why that was important. I would say I then in my earlier days, matched clients who also wanted to basically bypass. I feel like that was just misinformation, everything that I was reading was basically about transcendental states about leaving the body to obtain spirituality. And that was the good way to be above it, to be so above the truth that you don't even see it as truth anymore.

Aleta Cai 30:53
So, in my evolution, what ended up happening was working through a series of big blocks as in blocks to addressing what it was I was really feeling. And these came in episodes in my life, for instance, grieving after my mom passed, that was really tapping into the core of my relationship with my family, and all these things that moved out in my lower chakras. Then, a lot of the other work I would attribute to acting. I was luckily had the opportunity to take these acting courses, which I'm still in now. And that was all about being in the body being present. And also just knowing how to move the energy of emotions in your body where you hold them. That was an education.

Aleta Cai 31:43
Just seeing how other people also even related to their emotions helped me realize what collectively we hold and how we hold it, and how to help other people move it out. So, I would say that establish some of the groundwork, and also my acting teacher, notice she during our talkback, she said to me, you're absolutely invisible in your work. She's like you make it so about the other person's experience that you're not even in it. She's like, you can't hide, you have to be there because if you're in it, then you're allowing, your you're basically achieving the aim of taking care of the other person, because you're giving them something to do, as opposed to just like being there holding the space for the other person.

Aleta Cai 32:25
So, when I heard that, I realized, okay, it really is important. I was always resistant to seeming like it was about me or like being coming across like narcissistic, or anything in the work because I had healers in the past who I found that with, who made it all about them. But I do feel like it's a fine balance, because people are being drawn to you for a certain reason, because you hold the knowledge that maybe they need you to share, they need your experiences. And so, being invisible just is not serving anyone and the more present you are but still allowing and still holding the space, the more you're giving to the other person.

Candice Wu 33:04
Absolutely. I love how you're sharing that now. And it's, just great to see you show up. And I think the people that make me feel the safest are people like you that are sharing vulnerably or honestly. And not just using that but just like having that be open for itself it, for its own sake, but then also being able to tie that into something that's insightful and helpful because you're experiencing it. Not because it's like for other people, but it's for you. And it's valuable,

Aleta Cai 33:45
Right, and it's universal in the end. I do feel like a lot of this is about learning that going into the self and unraveling that and being able to share those pieces not because it's just because I want to talk about myself, but because it's a shared experience. I can help other people realize what they're going through, too, like I had a client, who said she never realized the extent to which she was sexually assaulted in her life until she heard her friends share their stories. And she said that happened to me. My friend is not okay with it. I'm not okay with it, either. And that's what elicited all these repressed emotions around the incidents. So, that's what I hope to do is just by broadcasting a little bit about what I've been through, maybe it's something that all women have been through, I mean, there's some commonality and no matter gender, any types of separation or even like identification. And so, just I think it's just the overall human experience.

Candice Wu 34:43
Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And it just also releases more shame, and more hiding from, for everyone because when we are open like that we can identify in each other, and we can see ourselves in the other person and connect in a different way. So, I think that's very powerful.

Aleta Cai 35:04
Yeah, it's true. Connecting is so important.

Candice Wu 35:08
Yeah, I think it's so wonderful where you are in your life. And I wonder what kinds of struggles you're having now, what challenges are, what things are you tussling with?

Aleta Cai 35:20
Currently, I would say, I come up against confusion a lot. Because of the fact that I feel like I'm occupying such a space where I can be very many different things, and it's up to me, it's not a template that's been created before. So, it's really up to me to pull in the pieces and make decisions. And that feels a little bit overwhelming. I know that there are a lot of studies out there that say choice can be quite stressful. And yeah,

Candice Wu 35:53
Freedom can be really scary.

Aleta Cai 35:55
Yes. And yeah, constantly sorting through what your choices are, and weighing the options and trying to project into the future is just very draining and hard. But it's where our rational minds like to be. So, I come up against that a lot. I would say because I could build my healing practice, or practices in a different direction, move more towards that, or I could move more towards BDSM. And it's a constant kind of push-pull between where I want to go and where I want to invest my energy. And then on another level, I think that we all just come across life, I struggle with my family, I struggle with, you know, living in New York, it's not easy. And I struggle with knowing just in situations how to be sometimes or what it is that I want out of a relationship, or do I want a relationship at all in any sort of like, platonic romantic ways. I really just think that it's simple, uncomplicated, and I think I think we're all going to a struggle at all different times. But I guess it's what you make of it.

Candice Wu 37:06
Absolutely. I think so. And especially when we're at different parts of our lives, it's like things unlock at different points in our lives. And then different parts of us are revealed, and different struggles come with that, or different parts of us are trying to come to the surface to be known and that brings its whole, anything that's blocking it or anything that gets in the way. So, I can definitely relate to that.

Aleta Cai 37:33
Yeah.

Candice Wu 37:34
And the confusion. Yeah, I mean, when you come to, at least it sounds like from where, from what I'm hearing from you, it sounds like you've attained a level of freedom in yourself. And when you do that, all those choices can be opened up. And so, I can imagine it's not easy to know, where you want to go next, or what's exactly, right?

Aleta Cai 37:57
Yes, exactly. I'm constantly checking the motor underlying that decision making, if it's coming from fear, if it's coming from overthinking with the rational mind, or if it's a purely intuitive choice, which I feel like intuition, like these irrational choices sometimes can be disguised as just impulsive behaviors that may not serve you. So, it's just constantly going between all those like, is this the right choice is this because I think that you'd mentioned earlier the idea of the unlived life. And with that I really just felt like sometimes when I'm making choices for breaking out of resistance and living this undetermined, and also very freeing, beautiful life can sometimes be making an irresponsible decision, are you at least I think that sometimes when I'm making a decision, maybe it's coming from being irresponsible, or maybe it's escapism from my present reality. So, I think it's about being very, very clear about how you're making these choices. And using both the rational and the intuitive to make that decision.

Candice Wu 39:11
Hmm, absolutely. Especially that part about that some choices we think are intuitive, or maybe as you said, irrational can be disguised from the impulse that it actually is, that really touches me somewhere.

Candice Wu 39:29
So what delights you in your life right now Aleta?

Aleta Cai 39:34
What delights me, I would say most recently, I had a bit of a heartbreaking moment. And that just kind of opened me up. Like it just opened my heart to just connecting with people and in so many different situations. And this happened when I was in LA. I saw my father after a year and a half. And it was just not how I want it to be. I think that I romanticize change and other people because I change a lot. I'm constantly trying to grow. So, I think well, maybe other people in my life have changed, too. But sometimes that's not the case.

Aleta Cai 40:14
And when that happened, it was like every opportunity I had, I would talk to someone and engage and have a conversation, understand what their point of view is, what their background is. And it could be the most superficial conversation, you just talk about what food you ate that day. But yet, I feel like there's still, it's not even about what you're saying. It's that you're being present. And you are understanding from this person's point of view that you will never see again.

Aleta Cai 40:41
That's really what I've been finding really fulfilling, especially New York City, I feel like the city can impale you with the energy or at least like be so overwhelming that it closes you off to these insignificant or seemingly insignificant ways of connecting with other people. And I do feel like the more that we can just be in it and have these open conversations to the point where we're not being overwhelmed or drained by them. It can really bring a lot of spark into our lives. And the more I do that, the happier I am, because I'm truly embracing all these moments that I have

Candice Wu 41:17
I love that, like the little moments and bringing them more attention and love.

Aleta Cai 41:23
Yeah, I mean, I'm grateful to be able to have any of these conversations. I'm grateful to have a perspective or to have experiences or to even have a favorite food from today or you know, these like little thing.

Candice Wu 41:37
I know the little things just seem even to me more increasingly important.

Aleta Cai 41:42
Yes, definitely, I mean, the larger things are all just an accumulation of these smaller things anyway, right.

Candice Wu 41:49
Right. Well, I have two more topics that I'm interested in talking about. And I just want to know if fill in, if you in want to talk about these. One is about sensuality and pleasure and permission, and the other is about self-love, and self-hatred.

Aleta Cai 42:10
Definitely. I mean, these are themes that are very prominent right now and my exploration, I would say that was sensuality and sexuality, and how it relates to my personal evolution. When I started domming, I don't think I had a very healthy relationship with my sexuality at all because I feel like this culture and maybe even the age group that I'm in, promotes this almost like free, seeming way of relating to each other and hookup culture. But meanwhile, it's actually very vacuous at its core. And it's about not really connecting.

Aleta Cai 42:44
And I think I had to work through a lot of shame relating to my sexuality through domming because at first, I felt because it was so sexual, I felt really ashamed of what I was doing. Because in my family and in my culture, and my upbringing, that was not okay. So, that took a lot of like confronting what it was that I was holding on to unconsciously in relationship to my sexuality. And I did hold on to consciously binaries of what women could be and how they could relate to their sexuality and a very traditional Chinese culture, within the very oppressive and I didn't even come to realize how separated I was from my sexuality and how scared I was.

Aleta Cai 43:30
And after my spiritual awakening, what I also did find was in a lot of these, I guess, transcendental, be maybe it's not even under this umbrella, but a lot of the bypassing material or education, when it comes to spirituality is about bypassing out of sexuality. It's like sexuality is wrong, we're not going to talk about it in this circle. And how do we like eliminate that, we don't want to have these basic human needs. So, that, too, was very separating from my sensuality and my sexuality.

Aleta Cai 44:04
So, later, this happened within the last two years, I found Tantra. I found ways of connecting to my own sexuality in a different way, and releasing a lot of the stagnant energy in my sacral didn't realize how much pain and anger is held there. And that I think, was my first kind of sexual education in a very spiritual way, and all-encompassing way. From that point on, after releasing a lot of those blocks, I just felt much more sensual and I almost feel like I gave myself permission to be that. I used to think that if you gave yourself permission to be sexual, it just meant that you were having sex with everyone. It's not that at all, I feel like that was a misconception I have, and maybe I had, and maybe some people share that too.

Aleta Cai 44:54
It's about as I found, power over power that comes from your sexuality is being very contained and very grounded and very accepting of the fact that you are a sexual being as a human being, and that it's okay to have urges, and it's okay to have sex with the right partners. And to know what your boundaries are, what your limits are, and how much you need in terms of intimacy, or maybe not at all. And what's really transformed is that I feel much more secure and much more safe in my body, which I didn't, before, I used to feel like, the way maybe handled my sexual energy was very much displacing it, it was a sense of like, I'm not in control of my sexuality, and I'm repressing my urges. And that really attracted to men who elicited discomfort in me, because they were maybe seemed really creepy or lecherous, because they were sniffing out that energy unconsciously, and it came off for them, like, I'm going to control your sexual energy. That was the match that I was having. So, yeah, so now it's much more like.

Candice Wu 46:04
That makes a lot of sense.

Aleta Cai 46:05
Yeah. Now, it's much more just like people who are just grounded and connected to their sexuality. I'm matching with those people. So, it's just I think it changes everything. It makes you I think, more creative, too, if you're open to your sexual energy.

Candice Wu 46:21
Absolutely. I think it's one and the same and, and that permission to have pleasure seems equated to permission to have desire, and to, to have what you want in life. And if it's coming from that clear place, not of resistance, not of like fighting against part of yourself that is natural. It can be so powerful.

Aleta Cai 46:47
I agree. And what I learned, that was key in my own healing was that for a lot of women, and just generally, but especially women are body sometimes may not feel safe and pleasure, because we're taught, oh, this is wrong, or there's some sort of unconscious programming that says that. And so, as you orient your body to feeling safe with pleasure, and associating it with good pleasure and not just escapist pleasure. I do feel like this instinct gets displaced in unhealthy ways of self-medicating or getting that quick fix, which can actually be self-sabotaging. But by tapping in and connecting to a healthy version of pleasure, you're then creating it unconsciously and in your body, that it's okay to pursue that. So, then I do feel since I've been on that path, opportunities, opening up and work, in friendships that are just generally more pleasurable, because I feel okay with it. I'm allowing it, life is pleasurable, I feel if we allow it to be.

Candice Wu 47:51
Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree. And it's, it feels like an underlying thread of worthiness, too, that you're worthy of it, and you're worthy of the pleasurable experiences that are coming your way. And that life, I don't know if I'd say life is meant to be pleasurable, because I can't say that for everyone. But for me, it feels like coming to the place in my life where it's meant to be pleasurable.

Aleta Cai 48:15
Yeah, I agree. I feel like there's also this struggle with that, I think in the collective unconscious, it's like, not only like, how much do I deserve to have this pleasurable, but what is deemed, I guess, okay. Like, I feel like sometimes I came up with guilt when I was this pleasurable experience. Why do I get that? Why is it that other people don't? Or, you know, there's, I guess it is tied into self-worth. But at the same time, I do feel like most people can find some sense of joy or pleasure in their day to day, I mean, sometimes I'm so just happy that I have like a piece of chocolate. And that's pleasurable and itself, I think it's really about like, understanding that pleasure may not come with expectations, and that just something so small can be so pleasurable, and everyone has access to that innate state.

Candice Wu 49:07
Oh, absolutely. And you're bringing up this idea of why do I get this pleasure, and someone else might not in that guilt, or maybe even shame, and that's something I've worked through myself. And I wondered, for you, especially you brought up your ancestry and your family and your culture.

Candice Wu 49:27
This, this is something that's not sexual related, but it's definitely sensuality and pleasure. I was eating crab legs, with this partner, ex of mine, and I just started crying while eating it, because I was like, my grandparents would never buy these for themselves, they would never spend the money, they would never feel like they would be worthy of it. Why do I get to be enjoying this? When they can't, and I don't think it's that they can't, it's just that they make choices differently. But what that came from, for me was this feeling actually of love, love for my family, and loyalty. And the way that it showed up was, if I don't have pleasure, too, I'll be loyal to them. And I'll love them.

Aleta Cai 50:17
Wow.

Candice Wu 50:19
And so when that came through, it was like, Oh, that's just not the way to love, that's not loving. I mean, it is, you know, in a backward way, but there's a new way to love. And that was an old way. And I can love them and have pleasure. And they can have it, too, If they choose. They may be in a different situation but some people perhaps can't choose that. But at least my loving can be more pure and clean now.

Candice Wu 50:47
So, I wonder for you how your ancestry comes into sensuality and sex and pleasure. And you'd mentioned some of the belief sets that you'd have you had worked through? Yeah. Wow. I mean, I'm also Chinese. So, I, I don't doesn't mean we have had similar experiences. But I did wonder, you know, what, what the experience of your ancestry brings to this conversation?

Aleta Cai 51:17
Definitely. Well, I do feel like there's underlying cultural misogyny that I've come up against. And that comes into form with this basic underlying philosophy of Neo Confucianism, where the idea before, at least from my understanding in China was, women are not valuable or as not as valuable as men. And then women were then, you saw this happen in orphanages where there are just lots of little girls that were discarded because of the one-child law, because everyone wanted a boy, and how women kind of their only hope for a better life would just be to marry off into a family and she became their property.

Aleta Cai 51:59
And being, bringing Neo Confucianism, I believe that was this underlying feeling, or this like program, which made me feel like my body, my vessel was owed to men. So, I found this happened not only sexually where I was just so like, and this is I feel like collective too, because of porn and the way that it's distributed and, and shot where it's really about worshiping the phallus, like, male pleasure is predominant. So, I felt kind of without realizing that my, it wasn't about my needs, I was not in touch with myself. I think I completely dissociated in sex when I was younger, and I couldn't get past the shame, and I couldn't get passed, making it about the other person completely and making sure that they were feeling pleasured.

Aleta Cai 52:47
And I also saw this happen energetically to where I was running my partner's energy through my body. And that always felt weird because I didn't want to, I wanted to be in my own experience, I just didn't realize that it was this unconscious piece that may have been cultural, that I felt like my body was owed, that my body was like somebody else's property in a way.

Aleta Cai 53:11
And I came up against also like my mother, she brought me up in a very traditional Chinese home, where she and my father, they had only slept with each other. And they were married when they did that, and there was a lot of shaming about dating or exploring their sexuality was just like a, why would you ever do that kind of thing. We never talked about sex ever in the household. So, when I started to kind of assimilate a little more and start to become, you know, I started to be a little more open with the way that I relate it to men, I do feel like I experienced quite a lot of judgment from my mother. And that hurt. I think, just when you get disapproval from parents, it can be really, it can feel life threatening sometimes because you relied on getting their validation or being part of the in-group to be able to, as you said earlier, express your love to fit in, to be taken care of as a child. So, yeah, I think that it really broke me down. It disconnected me from my sexuality, from my needs, and it's an ever-growing process. But the more I'm in touch, the better my life is.

Candice Wu 54:19
Yeah. Wow. Thanks for sharing that. Socially and was self-love?

Aleta Cai 54:24
Sure!

Candice Wu 54:25
Any thoughts about that today?

Aleta Cai 54:26
Self-love? Yeah, I've actually was thinking quite a lot about this today. I would say. So, I recently had a client who we did a little practice where we worked on self-love, giving herself some assurance and connecting to her inner self. And she had a lot of resistance to it. I saw a clairvoyant image, it was almost like a little hole inside of a tree that was in her heart center. It was his idea where it was like this little hole that wouldn't receive, you know, it's like rooted and really strong and beautiful, but she had trouble receiving love from herself because she was taught to hate herself.

Candice Wu 55:07
Oh, yeah.

Aleta Cai 55:08
And what I told her, yeah, which I feel like is a common thing. I feel like, for anyone, we're always coming up against that harsh inner critic, and reasons why we're not good enough. That's just the way that our culture I feel our society is built on just like creating these voids and making people feel not good enough. So, that will buy things and self medicate. So.

Candice Wu 55:31
Yeah.

Aleta Cai 55:32
Yeah, yeah. And what I really found was that, sometimes even because I've worked so much on self-love, what happens is then, we can, if we're like very much in, I'm very much in my third, third eye, so, it's like a lot of mental activity, I will sometimes think that I love myself, when my still my programming, unconsciously, is just repressing that inner critic where I don't feel good about myself. So, I think that's really the conflict that some people can run into when it comes to developing a better protocol for self-love is that it's, maybe we're bypassing or suppressing that part. That's still just like the ego trying to monitor and trying to criticize and trying to judge ourselves.

Aleta Cai 56:19
So, what I found through this client was that no, actually, the pure self is the one that knows how to love, the pure self when we're born.

Candice Wu 56:26
Mmm, yeah.

Aleta Cai 56:27
Yeah, I feel like as a baby, you're hardwired to be such a loving creature, because how else are you going to receive care? If you're not bonding, because love is bonding. And so it's just a natural way of being. So, it's not about, for her, like, she felt like she had to force herself to love herself, or like bypasses part. No, it's really just clearing the clutter of what it is these programs are and realizing that these are just programs, they're not your real self. And as long as you start moving those pieces out, you're also moving out the resistance to the self-love, because that's at the very bottom of all of this.

Aleta Cai 57:03
So, I think that the solution, I used to think that self-love was weirdly outside of me that it was something that I had to grab and like pull into my body. But really, it's something that's already core, and it's just clearing, that needs to happen. And then being more accepting at the same time, I do feel like there's a balance, because I do feel like being hard on myself and not being self loving or accepting has driven me in many ways to achieve I do feel like when we're really hungry for achievements constantly, it's maybe still coming from a place of I'm not enough, or for some people, not for everyone, for me definitely.

Candice Wu 57:46
Right.

Aleta Cai 57:47
And by doing that, I just I started to realize that it's part of knowing what motivates you. And, and knowing and I don't want to care what the think. But I think, the bottom line is, if your achievement focus, you do care on some level what other people think. And that can be useful, too, you can decide not to take it in, but still, use that as a way to sell a way to like kind of monitor where you are in your life and how you're kind of positioning and achieving things. And that may be also motivating. So, I do find it kind of a balance, because I don't want to be the person who is just so accepting that I don't feel like I need to do anything at all. Okay, right?

Candice Wu 58:30
Right. Right. Right. That's beautifully said.

Aleta Cai 58:35
Yeah, thank you. Um, so I think it's always fine tuning, always going back and reevaluating where you are and how you want to feel, and giving yourself permission to feel good about yourself, and allowing that I just kind of jump over feeling good about myself. When I've achieved something, I just go to the next thing. But that's being very, very harsh on myself and I need to kind of move that a little bit further on the spectrum towards being a little softer and gentler, and kinder with myself.

Candice Wu 59:05
Yeah, and like letting ourselves enjoy the moment of celebration and pleasure and reward, and not skipping it.

Aleta Cai 59:14
Definitely!

Candice Wu 59:15
It's like sending a message to ourselves that we're allowed to feel that

Aleta Cai 59:18
Yeah.

Candice Wu 59:19
And then we're allowed to feel it in the real moment, real time.

Aleta Cai 59:21
Yes. And this also really ties back into BDSM. It just occurred to me that there's this, I feel the masochistic urge and many people, at least in my experiences in the dungeon, most people they may not have identified as a masochist, but I do feel like there is an undercurrent of masochism. I think it shows up in just the way that we live our lives. I mean, athletes, people say that athletes or masochist because you're pushing your body to the point of pain. I feel like anyone else.

Candice Wu 59:51
Yes.

Aleta Cai 59:51
Yeah, who trains for endurance in any different field or, or puts themselves through very rigorous programs, you must on some level identify with the pain or love it to be able to get through to the next side, because how else are you going to do it? So, I do think that's intrinsic to the human condition is that yes, there's bottom line, a little bit of masochism, maybe a little bit of like, flogging yourself constantly, and maybe a little bit of knowledge, right, or deprivation being like, I deserve that pleasure. And that's just I think it's just all core, it comes back into kinkiness into our primal nature, into our experience of life. I don't want to be the person who gives that up, and doesn't like, you know, hit myself when I'm wrong, right? I mean, I don't, but I punish myself for doing something wrong. But I know that maybe I am hardwired to be a little masochistic as maybe most people are.

Candice Wu 1:00:46
Yeah, I'm laughing because it took me years to realize how masochistic, I was…

Aleta Cai 1:00:52
Really?

Candice Wu 1:00:52
to myself. Yes. And, and, and, okay. Speaking of things being disguised, it was disguised in the form of growth And disguised in the form of like, I guess, quote and quote, more self-love. But it was driven by not enough, or can I prove that I am strong. And it's, what I did for so long, and there's still pieces working out and I can, I can catch myself doing it some times where I go towards a hard experience, something that's like, very intense, or in some in a lifetime, unnecessarily intense for me, because I don't, in a way, there are some experiences that I need to just walk away from, that I haven't learned the walking away from energy or action. And so, I'll just keep going into it and into it in into it, like, intense process groups that are discussing power and authority and leadership, with race, ethnicity, and difference.

Candice Wu 1:02:00
And these are just so such intense experiences, or my most recent experience of being in Ireland, where I did an exchange with this woman, and I didn't know a thing about her, really, and I stayed with her family and in her home. I knew I was walking in a bit blind. And when I got there, it was just an incredibly harsh environment all around, like inner personally, weather-wise, space-wise. The learning with the horses that I was meant to learn there, that was also challenging.

Candice Wu 1:02:39
And without going into all the details, it took me two and a half weeks to realize this was way too harsh of an environment for me to actually learn in a good way. And I think it was just my masochistic side coming out again, and thinking I need to endure something hard in order to learn, I need to endure something to show my grit. And I don't. So, I think what you're bringing up is so important, like there's this fine balance and almost like a deep awareness of what is it that is happening? And is it a pattern, and what all these ways of our being are important at different times. And when have we overused one versus the other. And we're self-love doesn't just mean acceptance all the time of, of not doing anything or acceptance of anything. But sometimes self-love means to say no or to move away from something you feel an impulse to do, or just to use every tool we've got. What do you think about that?

Aleta Cai 1:03:39
Absolutely. I'm thinking, I'm thinking, yes, it's a gradient. And I do find that is based on what you shared in your experience. That part of the masochism for because I also share that I've put myself through very enduring acts and experiences knowing that maybe I can take it, maybe I can take it, maybe there's something to be learned. And I often do find that even though I may be really burnt out or drained, there is something valuable in that because it helps you recalibrate where your boundaries are, as you're saying, what shade or which, which compartment or which, like what the balances and on the spectrum of your personality, what works for you.

Aleta Cai 1:04:22
I do feel like when we are looking for hardships, again, tying in masochism, or going for that I do feel like the struggle is needed to find resilience. I do find that many of the times when I have had pain in my life, I've learned so much more than if I were just having this really, really lovely experience that's no in no way painful or disappointing. And so a lot of times I, too, I'm drawn to situations that may be a little difficult or really difficult. And through that, I find that we can see the gifts a lot, a lot clearer. So, I think there's a reason why we are programmed the way we are when I do find that even with these things like if we are, if we do accept the premise that people are programmed to be masochistic by nature, and that's something that's driving us in certain situations, then there must also be a part of us that experiences pleasure through that, too, because that's ultimately what masochism is, you find pleasure and pain?

Candice Wu 1:05:24
Yes, yes. I think that makes a lot of sense and the desire underneath the masochism to grow or to learn something new, or reveal something, or recalibrate a new boundary, as you said, it's this constant push-pull between the balance of where you are, and then the pushing into something uncomfortable that gets us to a new place or a new expansion. So, I think that makes a lot of sense.

Aleta Cai 1:05:50
Yeah, I just recently came across this really beautiful story about a butterfly and how the butterfly needs that struggle of emergence to be able to become a butterfly. And if it's short-circuited, then the butterfly will die. And so, that really helps me see a lot of this in a new perspective that a lot of this transformational process is about the struggle of emergence. That's what allows us to be who we are.

Candice Wu 1:06:19
Wow! Beautiful. Thank you so much, Aleta, I really enjoyed this conversation. And I learned a lot and we dug into some really interesting topics. Is there anything else you want to share today?

Aleta Cai 1:06:34
Nothing that comes to mind. I really, really enjoyed this, too, thank you.

Candice Wu 1:06:39
Thank you. So, you have an audience gift for people listening. Is that right?

Aleta Cai 1:06:45
Hmm. I do. I decided to offer 10% off for any of my vanilla healing services. So, these are not my in-person BDSM sessions. But these are ones that are remote and you can book those online through my website at EletaCai.com/booking.

Candice Wu 1:07:03
Excellent. That sounds really exciting for anyone who's interested. Thank you so much.

Aleta Cai 1:07:10
Thank you. It was a pleasure to speak with you today.

Candice Wu 1:07:13
Same with you. Take care.

Aleta Cai 1:07:15
You, too. Bye, Candice.

Candice Wu 1:07:18
Thank you so much for joining us today. I had so much fun with this conversation. And I hope that this has also inspired you or you found parts of yourself within this conversation to identify with and that it inspires you on your continual journey of healing and loving yourself.

Candice Wu 1:07:37
You can find Aleta at her website AletaCai.com, as she had mentioned, it's also going to be linked in the show notes, as well as her Twitter, which is @AletaCai. Be sure to check out her remote healing work as well as mentioned this podcast for that 10% if you're interested, and tune in later this week for an experience that is led and guided by her that you can use to practice and deepen in your own understanding of yourself and transformation.

Candice Wu 1:08:09
I want to thank you all for listening and being with me on this journey of this podcast. It's been about a year since this began. And so this is the Embody Podcast's birthday, I can't remember which day started. I'm not that great with birthdays. But only just a couple of weeks ago, we had Chinese New Year and the seventh day of Chinese New Year is everybody's birthday, which I think is around the day of the podcast's birthday. So, thank you all for being here. Even if you weren't here from the beginning or if you've bounced in and out. It's been a really beautiful journey. And I've loved all the conversations that I've been able to have with different people on the show as well as all of you that are reached out to me, share your experiences. It's just so delightful when I opened my email and I get a note from either someone I know or a perfect stranger that's been listening in and these connections really make this journey a lot of fun and very rewarding. Thank you.

Candice Wu 1:09:20
Before you go, I'd love to invite you to sign up for my bi-monthly newsletter. This will inform you of upcoming retreats with me, workshops, other courses, and classes online, as well as self-love notes. These are tips every couple of weeks that I send out that offer you a way to heal, a tip or a technique that can support you along your journey. If you'd like to sign up you can find it at CandiceWu.com/embody. And with that, we will end this week's podcast. I look forward to seeing you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

In this episode, we have special guest, Mia Park, who is a yoga teacher, writer, actress, music producer and event producer, and a volunteer. She shares her ancestries incredible story of escaping from North Korea to South Korea, the joys and challenges of acting, being nurse Beth on the show Chicago Med, the lessons of self in teaching prenatal yoga in jails, and how women can explore their relationship to being a leader.

Candice Wu 0:31

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

Candice Wu 0:45

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

Candice Wu 1:06

There is no sponsorship message today, but I do want to share a new dream class that I created which is on Skillshare. This is one of my passions is to explore dreams. I love, love dream work, and so, I created a dream class on how to remember your dreams, the basics about how to prepare yourself, create intentions around it and the tools you’ll need, as well as the key factor to remember your dreams when you wake up. This is the first class in a series of many that will dive into the juicy parts of Dreamwork, which is embodying the energy and the gifts, and wisdom that a dream brings you so that you can bring that into your life and feel even more whole. You can find this first class that’s about 35 minutes long on Skillshare at CandiceWu.com/dreamclass1, the number 1.

Candice Wu 2:04

Right now, these classes offered for free, I’d love for you to just get a taste of it, and please leave me a review and share your feedback about what you thought about the class, and that helps to also share that work with other people who are looking for a class about remembering their dreams. If you sign up through the link that I’m sharing with you today, CandiceWu.com/dreamclass1, you can also get two months free of the premium subscription. I think that after two months, it’s about $10 to access a wide variety of classes and offerings that are on Skillshare.

Candice Wu 2:45

Happy New Year, everyone! How are you all doing? It’s great to have you here. I can’t believe it’s been practically one year of doing this podcast. I remember the first time I did it, I recorded it like three or four times, and I was scared in so many steps of the way, sharing certain things that I did, sharing really personal topics, even interviewing people, it’s just not always easy but looking back, it’s just gotten so much easier. I feel a lot freer in my ability to voice what I want to say and to feel genuine and doing so. Still, I feel like there’s a long way to go and in some places, but I’m celebrating how I’ve been able to transform over this year. If you haven’t done so already, it’s a great time to look back on last year and look at the celebrations, feel into the things that you’ve grown on and integrate those into your being so that there’s part of you.

Candice Wu 3:52

There’s a podcast right before the new year about ending the year with grace and embracing impermanence, integrating and cleansing the energy of last year. So, if you want to check that out, you can go to CandiceWu.com/endingtheyear. And as I feel into the celebration of this podcast, and my ability to voice things out into the world, I also feel into ease. Ease seems to be something that stayed with me for a while ever since I went to Thailand last year. Just the question of how can I bring more ease into my life? Not necessarily how can I choose the easy way even though that is part of it, because a lot of times, there’s just a simpler way to approach something, a more direct way than I’m used to or then my patterns have shown me, but also how to be in that state of ease, while moving through life, while working, while creating things, and when I think about ease, bring it into my body, my muscles soften and I can enjoy things. Are there places for you that you want to bring the energy of ease, or softening or feeling graceful?

Candice Wu 5:18

And if you have other intentions for yourself for the year, I invite you to tune into that now. There are states of being or themes, words that really bring a feeling to life for you. For me, it’s about revisiting that energy daily or as many times a day as I can remember, really moving from that place.

Candice Wu 5:46

It’s really fun to have Mia Park on the show today. She’s a friend of mine. We first met through Advanced Yoga Teacher Training through the Darshan System with Jim Kulackoski, and I remember at that time, just how unafraid she was of being herself, asserting herself exploring topics of yoga and life, and digging into the truth, and it’s actually the first time I also learned about chanting mantras while cooking, because she’d often bring some yummy, delicious meals, and offer them to us and shared that she would chant different mantras that brought peace to her body and infused into the food, and it was delicious. So, I loved that and kind of opened my eyes to how energy might work in different ways.

Candice Wu 6:43

I find to me as zest and energy for learning to be so contagious, and her care for others and determination to support Asian women, especially in theater, and in their lives, in general, is really inspiring. Mia is powered by hope and engagement, and as a Chicago based multidisciplinary artist, she shares her passion for discovery through acting, teaching yoga, writing, playing music, producing events and volunteering. She’s just involved in so many different facets of life that she’s well informed and engaged, and all of these. So, without further ado, here’s me.

Candice Wu 7:28

So, Mia, I click open your website, and I see you in this commercial and you’re like shooting some sort of laser gun, and your face is just this like feisty, sneaky, playful face, and when I saw that, I was like, “Yes, that’s exactly how I see Mia.”

Mia Park 7:51

Cool.

Candice Wu 7:51

So, I wanted to welcome you to the show, and just start with that and give you the chance to share. Oh, my gosh, you are so many different things in the world and you have so many talents. You’re a playwright, you’re a writer, you’re an actress, you’re a yoga teacher, you’re an activist, feminist. Well, what are you not? Might be my question.

Mia Park 8:15

This is nice, you’re so sweet. Thanks, Candice. I think what I’m not is a slow person who can focus on one thing.

Candice Wu 8:27

Isn’t that interesting?

Mia Park 8:28

Nahhh.

Candice Wu 8:29

You’re like a multitasker goddess.

Mia Park 8:33

Thanks. I don’t, thank you. I appreciate that. And I understand you’re saying that like as a way to compliment me and I honor that.

Candice Wu 8:40

Yeah.

Mia Park 8:41

But I’m in a place in my life where I wonder what it would be like if I wasn’t, because I’m saying though, drawn at so many, too many things, and I am, I have to say I, you know, I understand that I am good at most things that I want to do. I mean, not to say that I’m not, I can’t learn, believe me, I’ve got a lot to learn but I’m successful enough at most things that I attempt that I am encouraged by whatever level of success I achieve, to keep doing more, and I don’t know how healthy that is right now. The other side of that is that I am having fun.

Candice Wu 9:19

I can see that.

Mia Park 9:20

Very, very lucky life. I feel really lucky for everything that I do. But I just wonder what it would be like to do one thing and do that deeply, just doesn’t happen. That’s okay.

Candice Wu 9:30

So, let’s backtrack a little, Mia. How, in a maybe a more lengthy story, I’m not sure, but how did you get to where you are now in your life? Where you are both, you know, all these things in your life? You’re acting? You’re on Chicago Med as nurse Beth, right?

Mia Park 9:48

Yes. Yes.

Candice Wu 9:50

You’re in Chicago still? Is that correct?

Mia Park 9:52

Yes.

Candice Wu 9:53

Yeah, and you teach your private clients teaching Yoga in group classes as well Yoga Nidra, and I know that you’re involved with Asian-American Theatre, and promoting other Asian Americans to be more involved. How did you get here in your life?

Mia Park 10:12

Oh, what a great question. Thanks. Um, I think I just redid my bio lines, and these things evolve, right? How we describe ourselves, who we are in relationship to ourselves, and my bio line, I think frames how I got here, I say, I define myself now as someone who is powered by hope and engagement. Throughout all the traumas that I’ve survived in my family, and then other kinds of like actions I’ve taken as adults, as an adult. I have always been driven by hope, and I’m very thankful for that, and I think that’s something that I may or may not be in control of, this has a lot to do, I think with karma and some scar, you know, the kind of like, life’s path the path that led me here, and also the predisposition, I enter this, this particular reality with.

Mia Park 11:09

So, there’s part of that that informs the level of hope I have, which is a lot. So, I certainly felt times of deep despair and hopelessness, but having kind of been present to myself through that, I think hope is what brought me to where I am, because I keep no matter how difficult or challenging things get, I haven’t connected to this underlying hope that whatever I’m experiencing is for an educational self-awareness, positive if you’re going to say positive and negative, positive experience of being alive, and the hope that this life is beneficial for myself and for others.

Mia Park 11:50

So, there’s a lot of hope there. So, I guess in the kind of chronological, tactile thing. So, I was born and raised in Philly, and both my parents are from Korea, and you and I were just talking, they’re actually not from what we think of as South Korea today or South Korea. My mother escaped from North Korea with her family, my father was born in Japan as a second class citizens. So, they actually both did not get to South Korea until they were about seven or eight years old as child refugees, already having survived World War Two, both of them and then additional trauma on top of that. So, they met…

Mia Park 12:23

…yeah, they met and married in the States, which is a little unusual, as opposed to coming over as a couple. So, I’m born and raised in Philly.

Candice Wu 12:23

Wow.

Candice Wu 12:30

Right.

Mia Park 12:31

My household growing up was absolutely chaotic. I went through a lot of pretty gnarly stuff growing up, and I’m very happy to have the wits about myself to be an adult who can look back and maintain hope and hopefulness, thinking about what family life was like for my five-unit family, particularly myself. And then, with my own kind of life to survive, despite everything that was going on in our crazy home, I maintained creative and escapism was a lot of what I went through. So, I think that it’s kind of again, what drives it is that karma is it nature or nurture, because I had a crazy home that I wanted to escape. So, I was an artist, which helped me escape what was happening. So, well, did I escaped what was happening, because I was an artist, you know, that type of thing.

Mia Park 13:27

So, as always, as in the fine arts, always creative, I always was into whatever was different. I always bumped the system. I didn’t like what group people were doing, but I grew up in church, which I found to be very beneficial because it connected me to this concept that there’s something outside of life than what was right in front of me, and it’s unfortunate to me, very, very unfortunate that coming from an indigenous ethnic culture that has its own spiritual background, because of the missionary work and the choices my family made, I go thinking a white man with a beard, not obtainable to me, by my own resources was the pinnacle of spirituality, and that I had to run to that guy for savior.

Mia Park 14:11

Sorry, but fuck that shit, you can delete that out later.

Candice Wu 14:16

Do you want me to?

Candice Wu 14:17

If you want, it’s up to you, you can keep it. But I, you know, I kind of rejected that from a young age because I thought this cannot possibly be the spiritual path that I’m supposed to be on right now. I just…

Candice Wu 14:28

Now, wait, are you saying that this is the spirituality that was brought to you because of your surroundings or your parents or both?

Mia Park 14:38

Both, my surroundings are Korean community and Philadelphia was really small growing up, and so, what we had was the church as our community. There was like, I don’t even think there was a Korean dry cleaner. There was like one Korean restaurant in all of Philadelphia, there was one Korean grocery store in all of Philadelphia, our community was small, this is what we were.

Candice Wu 14:56

Yeah.

Mia Park 14:57

And so, where we hung out with church, it was community. My father never went to church he was always an atheist. So, it’s really my mom. So, growing up with that way or rejected the kind of like, to this day still rejecting the cisgender white middle-aged your elder man in power. White man, I don’t know, I’m still, of course, had a little problem with that. Ironically, I think because I’m so conditioned to think that that white man is the prize, as far as being a woman of color growing up in a house of you know, with immigrants. My preference in partners has always been a white male American, for the most part.

Candice Wu 15:38

Isn’t that interesting, right?

Mia Park 15:39

Isn’t that interesting? I mean, I’ve certainly had relationships with other men that weren’t white or American, but pretty much that’s kind of been the prize for me, if I can, you know, somehow capture the attention of a white male in power, then I feel both safe and also accomplished at the same time, but at the same time, I reject God as a white man, you know, and that way so that’s that.

Candice Wu 16:02

Yeah.

Mia Park 16:02

I think that kind of like, rebellion of spirituality, yet longing for spirituality also set the tone for the choices I made. So, it was a crazy teenager, started playing rock drums and I was 19. So, I’ve been playing rock drums for decades now, which is pretty fun, and…

Candice Wu 16:20

I can just see you as a 19-year old like blasting on the drum.

Mia Park 16:24

Oh, so funny. Lose.

Mia Park 16:27

Yeah. So, somewhere in that being feeling lost and trying to find myself phase I ended up doing a ton of drugs, moved to Austin, Texas to form a band, but did way more drugs then started a bit, like I was out of my mind every day on drugs in Austin, and then to get out of that, I decided to move to Korea. We moved around so much growing up to because my dad’s just like not a balanced human being, and he kept making choices that made us move. So, I moved from Philly, moved on from Philly until Austin, Texas and then from Austin and move back to Philly for a little bit, and then I moved to Korea, South Korea, and I was there for a little over a year. Then I moved back to Philly because my father ended up going to prison the first time and I decided to come back to help my mom out. And then from there, I moved here to Chicago. Oh, yeah, we also moved to LA when I was a teenager because my dad was like we’re moving to LA. So, moved to LA and then after years, like we’re moving back to Philadelphia, so that was somewhere in the mix.

Mia Park 17:25

And then I’ve finished Chicago ever since I decided to come here to go to college outside of Chicago called Shimer College. It’s a great book school. So, I went from living in Korea to coming to a classical, like, dead white, European male classics way of learning like a Socratic method of learning. But that was beneficial to because it helped me discipline my squirrely mind into a framework of how I can discourse and interact with people kind of in a modified way, because before I would just be like a big ball of energy exploded all over.

Mia Park 17:58

So, then yeah, I just stay in Chicago since then, I got into cardio kickboxing because I grew up doing martial arts because my father was a martial arts master for a while. So, that was I grew up doing that. So, I started to merge this like desire for creative life, which was playing drums, and then I got into acting, and also the spiritual life that I got through growing up in church, and then this kind of physical life through kickboxing, and Shaolin Kung Fu. And they all kind of started to merge a little bit together, and then I am lucky, but I’m also super driven. So again, driven with that idea…

Candice Wu 18:34

Oh, really?

Mia Park 18:35

Yeah, right. With that hope, that thing of hope, just like, I wonder what this is, I am going to check that out. So, I wonder what acting’s like I’m going to get into acting. And like 18, almost 19 years later, here I am still acting professionally, and that a whole thing of the physical thing of like, I was actually doing teaching kickboxing, and there was a yoga class after kickboxing, and this was in 2000, the year 2000, or something, and I was like, “What is this yoga thing?” And that’s when I first started my physical yoga practice, and now I’m teaching yoga since 2006. So, I’ve been teaching since then. And then, of course, Yoga was a great pathway for me to involve myself on a spiritual path, and actually my spiritual path that was more of a Taoist work, and honestly, I both do Tai Chi, a Tai Chi practice and asana.

Mia Park 19:28

So, the physical, so it’s kind of both a yoga mind and yoga physical practice that I practice. So, I guess it’s kind of led me to where I am just like the fearlessness or maybe ignorance to just dive into whatever I want to, like respect for what holds me together and like being rule-abiding to an extent, but also super rebellious in like questioning what I’m doing and why.

Mia Park 19:55

So, I hope that helps.

Candice Wu 19:56

I can absolutely see that in you, and I, as I’m here to talk about your life story and your path, I’m hearing it with a whole different lens, in the context of your ancestry story, because your ancestry escaped to what was, I actually don’t know the conditions, but they left Korea and found a better life, and so that hope and that being rebellious and questioning things, and going for things maybe even blindly sounds so familiar to that story, and I would love for you to share that story with everyone listening.

Mia Park 20:35

Yeah, thanks. I think it’s an amazing story. As much as I have a lot of anger and work on forgiveness for my parents and kind of processing whatever residual effects I have from the household, we grew up in a very, very violent household, then I still am better able to put their actions into context thinking about their origin stories. So, my father was born and raised outside of Nagasaki, Japan, as a second class citizen, the Japanese for those who are not aware the Japanese colonized the peninsula of Korea and treated Koreans as a workforce as second class citizens. So, there were many, many, many thousands and thousands of Koreans that lived in Japan as laborers because the hope, the educational hope for their children was better in Japan, and also because there was work, there was money. Korea was very poor the time and I’m talking about the Korean Peninsula.

Mia Park 21:36

So, eventually Korean peninsula was divided after world war one actually, and the Chinese communist kind of have more of a hold of North Korea, and then the Japanese had South Korea colonized. So, this is what I’m understanding. So, my father was born and raised in Nagasaki, and actually survived the Nagasaki bombing towards the end of World War Two, he was seven, and because he was a second class citizen, and it saved their life and his family, because the Koreans lived on the outskirts of town, he sat in little shacks, and it was dirt paved roads, it wasn’t even sophisticated at all. Sometimes, the electricity, when he was outside playing any, they were used to planes being overhead, but he heard the planes. And he said, the ground shook, and then everything caught on fire at once. Including the ground people. Yeah. So, he ran.

Candice Wu 22:29

What an incredible sight that I can’t even imagine seeing that.

Mia Park 22:33

Yeah.

Candice Wu 22:33

And experiencing that. So, he ran.

Mia Park 22:35

Yeah, he ran back to the house, the little Korean enclave, and then shortly after that, the Japanese are surrendered, and then they kicked out all of the Koreans. So, my grandfather took my dad. At that time, there was a family of five, his family, and they fled. So, my father did not arrive in South Korea until he was like seven. They had to redo all their paperwork. So, they were there and they settled in a town called Daegu, we’re outside of Daegu, actually. Interestingly, Daegu was the only major city that was not captured by the communists after the Americans came in through North Korea, I’m digressing now, so, anyway, families, basically my dad’s family is pretty safe, and they have been taken.

Mia Park 23:25

And then my mother was born and raised in North Korea, and because her father was going to be killed because he wouldn’t give up Christianity, the Christian God, my grandfather escaped and then my mom and some of her siblings escaped and then her grandparents and their siblings, I’m sorry, her grandparents and other my mom’s siblings escaped in three ways. They escaped from North Korea to South Korea. So, my mother didn’t come to South Korea until she was eight, and so, again, both of my parents survived in World War Two in North Korea, Japan respectively, and then surviving the trauma of escaping or fleeing from where they were landing in South Korea as children. So, already haven’t gone through all that trauma, right? And then surviving the Korean War. Oh, my gosh, I don’t think we have that long. Yeah. My dad, all over my dad was separated by people. He was, I think, 11 or 12 at that point, and his sister was 12 or 13, and the two of them having a pocketful of money that did nothing. They walked from soul. They’re actually in Seoul at the time, they walked from Seoul to Busan, they walked.

Candice Wu 24:34

That’s a long way.

Mia Park 24:35

Oh my god, they were so hungry. They would run into people’s houses and like steel raw sweet potatoes or raw rice and just eat that and they walked all the way to Busan because they had other family in Busan. The war was in Seoul not Busan, so they had to go. And my dad said all the money in their pockets couldn’t get them on a boat, or a plane or anything. Like, I’m talking about transportation that wasn’t even available on a bus basically, or a train. It just wasn’t available, they couldn’t do it. So, then my mom ended up in Seoul, and here’s an interesting story. So, my mother and grandmother…

Candice Wu 25:13

Not this whole thing, not this whole thing, isn’t?

Mia Park 25:16

Yeah, I know, right, this…

Candice Wu 25:17

Right?

Mia Park 25:18

Well, you and I talked about this specific point, which is, I think is so fascinating. I don’t believe in coincidences, right? Like I believe in there being fate and a lesson and everything. So, my mother’s two younger sisters, and her grandmother and grandfather walked from their apple orchard in North Korea, they walked along the coast of the ocean, they actually walked in the ocean during the night and slept in the mountains during the daytime to escape from North Korea, and they gagged my two aunts because they were crying. So, they would hold them on their back and walk in the ocean up to their chins during the night, and then sleep in the mountains and like with these gagged children, un-gag them and feed them and then gag them again.

Candice Wu 26:07

Were they babies?

Mia Park 26:08

Yeah, they were children. They were under three years old and under.

Candice Wu 26:13

Wow.

Mia Park 26:13

And so, they made it, took them a month. Meanwhile, my mother had reunited miraculously with her father. So, my father, my mother’s siblings, except for the two younger and her parents were reunited. They had a house and Seoul, and their aunt who’s still alive, she’s a hundred, my great aunt was on the way to teach Sunday school, they’d already gotten into Seoul and when it was part of a church, and she just decided to take another way to Sunday school, and we have to remember this was before the war started but after World War Two, so people were poor and begging, and we’re all along the streets, everywhere.

Mia Park 26:54

So, my grandfather had an apple orchard and had like, smuggled enough money to where they could have a house. They have like a huge family, right. So, it was like a lot of people living in this little house, but at least they had a house. So, it’s not uncommon to have people like begging on the streets, and be we will say homeless and just all over. So, my aunt, you know, was walking to Sunday school down a new path, and she heard a baby wailing, and she thought, “Oh my gosh, that sounds like my niece. Only my niece has that particular wail.”

Candice Wu 27:26

Oh, my goodness.

Mia Park 27:27

She turned around and walked back, and she saw her parents squatting in the dirt road with her nieces begging for food and money, and she had walked right past her own parents begging, they were so dirty and so thin that she didn’t even recognize her mom and dad. And so she said, “Oh my gosh, Mom, Dad, it’s me.” They didn’t recognize her because you know, there are so many people walking by.

Candice Wu 27:56

Yeah.

Mia Park 27:56

So, there was a huge, beautiful reunion right there in the dirt road and them up and her nieces and walked back to the house, and this was my father’s sister. So, she’s was my father’s parent, I’m sorry, my grandfather sisters. It was my grandparents, my grandfather, his parents. So a huge reunion.

Candice Wu 28:12

So, this is incredible.

Mia Park 28:14

Incredible.

Candice Wu 28:14

It’s incredible.

Mia Park 28:15

All the children, my mother, and all her siblings are reunited, and my grandfather and grandmother were there, and my grandfather’s sister and my grandfather’s parents. So, basically, that part side of the family was all together.

Candice Wu 28:28

Wow.

Mia Park 28:30

Yeah.

Candice Wu 28:30

So, how many years had they gone? Or how much time had gone by?

Mia Park 28:34

Months, there had been months. Probably, my grandfather left months before the rest of them. So, the whole entire family as a unit together? I’m going to say maybe four or six months, maybe.

Candice Wu 28:45

Wow.

Mia Park 28:46

So, my mother reunited with her father, a couple of months after he had left and it took my great grandmother and aunts a month to walk down. So, you know, probably the whole thing six months or more.

Candice Wu 29:01

Wow.

Mia Park 29:01

I know, it’s hard to get the clue in because my parents are elderly, and a little more not as centered, and plus, they don’t like talking about this. But not talking about my mom, I guess. My mom will talk about it, but she doesn’t really remember. She will often say oh ask my uncle hell no more than me, and I asked my uncle and he’ll just go like, “Oh, that. I don’t know why they want to hear about that. You know, so it’s hard to kind of, being another Asian with… you know, I’m talking about there’s that lineage.

Candice Wu 29:24

Yeah.

Mia Park 29:28

Not wanting to talk about things which has to do with this whole kind of Confucius lineage, I think of just, you know, just being humble or not wanting to talk about your past too much sometimes.

Mia Park 29:37

So, that’s just the tip of the iceberg, but that was a pretty interesting way that my mom’s family, my mom, and my dad ended up in South Korea.

Candice Wu 29:37

Right. Yeah.

Candice Wu 29:48

Wow. So, how does knowing your story, knowing your family story? How does that affect you or especially when you found this out?

Candice Wu 29:57

Well, I found it out in steps, which was thankful. So, it wasn’t just one huge reveal. And the older of my parents get the more they will talk about what happens, so, it’s a little more easy to process for me. How that reveals itself to me is that I realized that I come from tough people. I come from survivors. And so, I myself, I fancy myself a scrapper, meaning that I use all kinds of very creative, with the resources I draw from, in order to not only survive but thrive.

Candice Wu 30:36

Absolutely, I find you incredibly resourceful.

Mia Park 30:39

Thanks, and that has to do with my own traumatic upbringing, but also the way my parents were raised, and the way this trauma they survived, and the way I was raised with them, you know, we did things like if we wouldn’t buy scotch tape, this is an example. Instead of buying scotch tape, we would use Korean sticky rice to seal gifts when we wrap them to save money.

Candice Wu 31:00

Oh, wow.

Mia Park 31:02

Like that’s what I’m talking about scratch.

Candice Wu 31:04

That’s awesome.

Mia Park 31:05

Yeah, I mean that’s also like my mom saying growing up with like, what’s sticky tape? Like, what is that? Right? But it’s also like, we’ve got rice. Why am I spending money on? Why am I spending 59 cents on scotch tape? There’s rice, this will work.

Mia Park 31:21

So, that’s how we give all the gifts to my friends. It’s like sticky rice, like all the birthday, and I look in hindsight and I go like, “Oh my god, how embarrassing.” Like a part of me at some point. I hope my American friends don’t realize this is put together with rice. Right now, I look back and I’m like, that’s awesome.

Candice Wu 31:21

Right.

Mia Park 31:38

Sticky rice, every gift.

Candice Wu 31:40

It’s brilliant.

Mia Park 31:41

You know, anyway, yeah, forget hair gel, just smashed up some sticky rice, anything that needs binding, sticky rice is your solution.

Candice Wu 31:48

And if you’re hungry, you know, you can have a little dessert.

Mia Park 31:51

Your gift wrap. That’s all I gotta say.

Candice Wu 31:53

Yeah. If you must.

Mia Park 31:55

If you must.

Candice Wu 31:56

Well, it’s reminding me of the story of, sorry, remind me who it is that but eating the money in order to bring it over?

Mia Park 32:05

Oh, that’s another part of the story, that’s right.

Candice Wu 32:08

I love that part.

Mia Park 32:08

Yeah, thanks. So, my great grandmother, my mother’s father’s mother, my mother’s grandmother. After they…

Candice Wu 32:14

Mother’s grandmother.

Mia Park 32:15

Yeah, mother’s grandmother. After they had survived and ended up in Seoul. This was before the start of the Korean War. My mom would wake up and her grandmother would just be gone, and be gone for like, three to five weeks at a time. And they’re like, “Where’s the Where’s grandmother? Oh, my gosh, did she died? Did she run away” What happened?“ And then my great grandmother would just show up and be like, ”Oh, here’s some gold and some coins, by the way.”

Mia Park 32:15

And they were like, “What?”. And so, before they fled North Korea, my grandfather’s family buried gold and coins, and they were poor and starving in South Korea at this point. There were so many kids, lucky they had a house but they were struggling, and so, actually the first time I great grandmother walked back to North Korea and walked back to South Korea because she thought who’s gonna bother little Korean lady, she put the stuff from the hair because all Korean women had long hair and they put it in buns and they would like put a little pin in their hair, to push the hid it in her hair. But she got caught, and they made her take out, take it out of her hair.

Mia Park 33:21

So, then the third time, and I don’t know where that happened, I’m not clear whether that happened the end of the first time or the second time. She still had, she would hide it under clothing. So, she did still managed to sneak some things over, she was like folded over in her clothes and then you know even though they caught it her hair. So, I know at least the third time she walked up and over she would eat the money, and jewel, the gold and poop it out, and the last time. You want to talk about tough stock I come from. The third time she escaped from North Korea, she was quiet, and according to my mom, my grandmother, my great grandmother was thrown into a cell stripped naked and she had to play dead. And so, they beat her, they kicked her and she just pretended she was dead, and then they threw her body into a pit of bodies nude.

Candice Wu 34:09

Oh, my goodness.

Mia Park 34:10

And at nightfall, she had to climb out of this pit of bodies and made it back to South Korea still eating and pooping out his gold chunks and coins. And so…

Candice Wu 34:24

She is so tough like that is incredible.

Mia Park 34:26

Are you kidding? Right?

Candice Wu 34:28

That’s the stuff you see in the movies, right?

Mia Park 34:30

It is. I do have her pictures on my wall. I look at them every day. And still, so, the last time she came back, they were like, “Stop, can you just stop going to North Korea?”

Candice Wu 34:49

Which is probably why she would just disappear, right? People probably would not want her…

Mia Park 34:54

My mom would wake up and she’d be gone like three times for a month. But actually, also the last time she came back, the war broke out, and so, she didn’t leave after that. But all those efforts were short-lived because with the war they were still so poor, my father, my grandfather would go to the Red Cross and take all the clothes that were donated, and my mom and her sisters and my grandmother, and all the women would lend the clothes with a needle and they would pull thread from the clothes that needed fixing and then, remend it with its own thread, and then sell the clothes on the street to try to make money.

Mia Park 35:37

So, that’s kind of, yeah, that was how they, oh my gosh, and then the communist push down, and so they had the free Seoul and lived in a cave, and then the Americans invaded and then, and landed with MacArthur and then push it back up, so, then they had to move again, and then the North Koreans push down again. So, they had to move again, and then the battle line kept pushing north, south, north, south, north-south and the 30th parallel, where it was at the beginning of the war anyway. So, nothing landmass was gained. So, my parents, my mom ended up in Seoul, finally, after I have to flee going back, fleeing, and going back. And my father like I said, eventually after Seoul, they landed in Pusan, and then Pusan was taken over, and then they ended up in Daegu where he calls his hometown now.

Candice Wu 36:28

Wow.

Mia Park 36:29

Yah.

Candice Wu 36:32

What an incredible story.

Mia Park 36:33

Yeah, thanks.

Candice Wu 36:34

And those are just pieces I know.

Mia Park 36:36

Yeah, pretty intense stuff. So, I come from tough stock. That being said, I come from tough stock that isn’t always very sensitive, and I constantly working at my sensitivity. I find sensitivity in my Tai Chi practice that I have not found with Asana but it’s my trajectory is becoming more subtle because I started out with like, hardcore martial arts, then I went to Tachyon, which is a Korean form of hard martial art. Then I went to a slightly softer form of martial art, Kung Fu, which required a little bit more subtlety with this more soft form.

Mia Park 37:11

Then from there, I went to, I guess, cardio kickboxing, which had like, not a lot of subtlety at all, actually. But then anyway to tell yoga Asana, which got me in my body in a strong way, but also to listen to more subtly. And then from yoga Asana, I’m now doing Tai Chi, and I’m in a four-year yoga therapy training. So, personal practices actually more therapeutic, which I believe that all yoga Asana has an opportunity to be, and my personal practice that is actually this Tai Chi, long and short form, which, to me right now is so subtle. And so, the subtlety, like the scrappiness is still is bad being balanced more with the level of subtlety that I think is just like, it’s working for me. I’m more sustainable. Yeah, I’m sustainable.

Candice Wu 37:55

Well, and it yeah, and it sounds like the trauma and the survivor physiology is coming out of the system, like not just yours, but your ancestry, if that makes any sense or no?

Mia Park 38:09

It does make a huge bunch of sense. So it’s interesting when we think about family ancestry, and we think about the lineage, I have this kind of like, difficult blessing that my family, my lineal trauma is very clearly indicated in two parts of my body, my left shoulder and my left hip, and what how that translates to me immediately is that one of the ways my father would abuse me is that he would sit on the end of the bed with his legs spread, and I would have to stand between his knees at the edge of his legs, in Korean martial art, in Korean salute fashion, because my father was in their Korean army. So, he beat us militarily, and so he had a collection of sticks, and depending on whatever I had done, would be the base on the weight of the stick, and so I would stand at the edge of his knees, and he would beat me in my left thigh and my left arm, and my left side of my face with the stick.

Mia Park 39:14

And so, it was really like, in the military-style was to do it in the same place, and he always did it where you couldn’t see it. So, if I wore a short-sleeve shirt, you can see how to bruise on the top of my arm. You know, he would do it on my thigh at my hips, I have to wear shorts, and Jim you couldn’t see the bruise, and he never hit me in the face, he not poked me in my face and hit me so that I wouldn’t ever have a face bruise. And so, I think that that has to do with why I have this like perennially, like chronically tight left shoulder, and which is more del with, actually, and then like hip area. But that is that being said, from one of the ways my father would beat me, it’s this, this pain that I have in my body, almost all the time, time is tied to the female lineage. It’s directly tied to the female history lineage I have. And when I can, when I am deeply in touch with that part of trauma and healing, this part of my body relaxes.

Mia Park 40:17

The other fascinating thing is that when I was abused as a child, there are different levels of frozen younger Mia, also embodied in this physical pain. So, when I pause and listen to the pain and the tightness, I try to listen very deeply to whatever age little Mia that is that I’m listening to and what she needs. Oftentimes, it’s just being held, and the exercise definitely helps, but when I’m healing a little stages of little Mia, I feel this matriarchal, historical, long, long, long lineage, including my father side of the family matriarchal, was long, long, long lineage of like a relief, a sigh, a collective sigh, whenever I can get it to release a little bit, but the messed up thing is that, yeah, the mess up thing is that there is so much immediate trauma that me as a woman and young woman survived, my mother and my father, sister, and mother survived, and then their female sides going back and back and back.

Mia Park 41:25

But I have an older sister who survived her own levels of trauma. You know, Candice, there’s a whole lot of just the female energy, trauma legacy in my body, and it’s in me more than anyone else that I know of in my family, on both sides, and I don’t feel like I’m this special chosen one, just for whatever reason that I think I’m the one that’s most sensitive to it and the one that’s agreeing to listen to it more. I’m not going to get surgery, I’m not going to go on meds for it I’m already doing to the jury of, to the degree of how I can hold space myself, right? And I think I’m only one that’s it, embracing it, and that’s why I’m feeling that girl.

Candice Wu 42:03

Absolutely. There’s a space for you to heal it. And it seems like the soul of your family, there’s an innate understanding of that through you.

Mia Park 42:12

Yeah.

Candice Wu 42:13

Which can be, you know, a huge gift or a huge burden, different times different things, I would imagine.

Mia Park 42:19

At, yeah, different times different things, and at the same time, the same thing.

Candice Wu 42:22

Yeah, well, and you know, when you said about the pain here, and you’re hitting your shoulder, is that is, it sounds like it’s kind of perpetual in ways or its layers of it, and as you spoke about that, I just thought about, I thought about your great-grandma, who was going to get the money and pretended to play dead, right? And it feels so similar to that in a way, to me, where, if you know you’re going to get hit, your body’s going to just build up the armor and brace yourself.

Mia Park 43:02

Yeah, great point.

Candice Wu 43:05

So, in a big way that sounds like it might have helped you. Your body helped you in that way.

Mia Park 43:10

Interesting. Yeah, my body I blessed this, I’m so grateful and thankful for this very, very strong body. I mean, it’s definitely been through a lot, and in my adult years, whether it’s like current karma or past karma, karma or like choices, I survived the choices I made, all the above, I had six surgeries in two and a half years. One on each knee and four have been oral. So, definitely, if we want to get settled esoteric, you know, knees and legs have to do with going forward in life, and supporting you that way to trajectory and, you know, having knee surgeries might suggest that there’s this like, “Am I going forward in a mindful way? Am I going forward it, you know, to quick, do I need to slow down? I know…

Candice Wu 43:56

Grounding.

Mia Park 43:57

…grounding, right and the speed and the oral thing has to do a lot with speech, and you know, representation in that way of speaking and digesting the saliva and teeth of the first part of the digestion system. You know, which has to do with processing in that way. So, I get that there’s a lot of subtle and very deeply connected effects to this physical body having all these surgeries. So, I try to go between the plans from growth to settle, because knowing I can get to settle and lose the physical connection. I’m trying to stick in the physical realm of how my surgeries are helping this body, which connects to my shoulder and hip, which connects I know back to this matriarchal, spiritual kind of like burden/gift I have. So, if that makes sense, I’m translating the physical growth into this pain to heal all of it. So, the pain’s very, very helpful.

Candice Wu 45:00

Yeah, right. It sounds like in a way it’s keeping you connected with the physical.

Mia Park 45:06

Yeah.

Candice Wu 45:07

Connected with the body. Yeah.

Mia Park 45:09

No choice.

Candice Wu 45:10

Right.

Candice Wu 45:12

Well, let’s switch gears here. I have some fun questions for you. Hope these are fun. What’s it like to teach yoga in the jails?

Mia Park 45:18

Oh, I love teaching yoga and Cook County Jail. I teach prenatal yoga. So,…

Candice Wu 45:24

Oh, you do?

Mia Park 45:25

Yeah, I’ve been teaching prenatal yoga and Cook County jail for eight years, and because of where we are, I don’t always see the same women twice because they volunteer to take the yoga class, and also sometimes they either get released or they get sentenced, then they moved to the person. So, I, that’s one sad thing for me because I don’t get to see them often enough. You know, I go once a month. So, I don’t know if they had their baby, did they have their baby.

Mia Park 45:51

It’s also interesting, very fulfilling for me to connect with these women who made choices. They all make choices, and we make choices, and I feel like we we’re whole our own type of jail like we’re all in our own type of hell. So, they’re being in jail is the physical manifestation of whatever jail I put myself into the choices I made. So, working with him is like a practice on working with me in a way, and also…

Candice Wu 46:17

Yeah.

Mia Park 46:18

…I think it’s good to give these women coping techniques that I really hope that they can take away with them. So, I keep it super simple, and I keep it super applicable. Like, let’s practice deep breathing. As rewarding for me to see these women breathe deeply, and it’s a dialogue, like I love how you appreciate the amalgam of this conversation. I try to make our practice an amalgam, I welcome feedback. I pause for Q and A with them, and I try to gently insist on them giving feedback just to verbalize. I do feel calmer after 10 deep breaths like, great. So, I keep my jail yoga very simple, so that they can learn something to take away with them and then rewarding for me.

Candice Wu 47:01

That’s wonderful, and I love how you use that reflection for yourself of like, what working on yourself and what, where are you caged or what jail are you in?

Mia Park 47:15

Yeah.

Candice Wu 47:16

I love that experience. So, what’s the lesson with nurse Beth? Do you see it that way?

Mia Park 47:22

I do. It’s so funny. Like, I try to find some kind of codified thing, I’m like, okay, what’s the acting? How does that tie in with the spiritual work?

Candice Wu 47:32

Yeah.

Mia Park 47:33

And my codifying like, my binding one overall kind of mission statement with everything is that I seek self-awareness, and my choices also encouraged self-awareness in myself and others. So, for the nurse Beth, for me as an actress, oh my god, for sure. Like, I’ve done I think 25 episodes or more. So, believe me, I’m like, understand the character and I know what it’s like to be on this set. I still sometimes get nervous, and I feel like I overact and I go through this process of self-judgment, and I go through this like, “Why do I do this? I’m an awful person, I suck. Why am I even bothering?” And any kind of self-criticism is an opportunity to really think why I asked myself why am I feeling that way? Me, acting on this TV show does that more for me than anything else in my life right now.

Candice Wu 48:33

Wow.

Mia Park 48:34

For me, acting period is the biggest opportunities for self-reflection because I still judge myself so heavily. So, and that access for my own personal growth, that’s why I’m doing it, and honestly a part of the written I believe, I am lucky. Like I paid off my car, I bought a condo, a lot of my monetary lifeline is this NBC TV show and I am so thankful and grateful. So, another…

Candice Wu 48:57

Wonderful.

Mia Park 48:57

Yeah. Another part of my activism, my enjoyment, and activism with being on the show is a representation. So, I am in activism for Asian-American representation in the Chicago theater scene, and I got to start out specific. So, I actively do things like I produce, I promote Asian-Americans to write plays, I put together a whole series at Chicago’s best theaters Victory Gardens, Steppenwolf, and the Goodman to read these plays that are directed by and written by local Asian-American theatre talent, because we need to tell our stories, even if the story is about an African-American family, we even have the story is about, like reading a book in outer space, it’s still an Asian-American playwright, filtering the universe through their lens.

Mia Park 49:46

And so, my way of living my activism is being on that TV show 25 times is being the best actress I can be, so, they call me back 250 more times. That’s like saying, “Hey, I could be anybody. But guess what, I don’t have to be the majority person to be here, I’m just going to be me. I’m going to be an Asian American, middle-aged woman, who’s a nurse.” And honestly, truth be told, that reflects life. There are a lot of Asian-American middle-aged women who are nurses, not on TV, though. But my little bit of represent, every time I do an acting job on stage, even if it’s a voiceover job, or on camera on a commercial, I’m bringing my whole self, that’s how I’m presenting to the world to that, very consciously.

Candice Wu 50:38

Yeah, I think that goes back to engagement.

Mia Park 50:40

Yeah.

Candice Wu 50:41

As you said, you really try to show up.

Mia Park 50:44

Yeah, I tried to.

Candice Wu 50:45

That’s extremely powerful. And speaking of that, of power and showing up, what is your thought about at the moment, about how women can really step into leadership in their own leadership?

Mia Park 51:01

Well, I think the answer to every question is twofold. The general answer to every question is it depends, and but really, really, really the answer to really every every every question, I think that is, who are you in relationship to what the question is? You know, so, if a woman wants to become more of a leader, who is she in relationship to herself as a leader? And how she discovers that is through all the techniques that you and I practice and teach is tools of self-awareness, meditation, journaling, the basic sleep, well drink enough water, all these things. So, if a woman can get to know herself better, and you can even frame that in, like, the business model of success, like what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? That’s great, that’s still a degree of self-knowledge. Knowing, a woman knowing who she is, and why she wants to bring her whole self to the table of leadership is the first way that she can step into a role of leadership.

Mia Park 52:04

The second one is it depends. It depends on what you can leverage. I have a yoga client whom I adore, we’re very close. She happens to be born into wealth and made wealth as an adult. She’s a young adult, she’s a senior now. So, she’s in every position to step into leadership, but because he happens to have the finances, she’s not really in a position of leadership, she chooses to donate money to organizations, that means a lot to her. And she’s very generous with the way she donates. So, her form of leadership is leveraging the wealth that she inherited and made, and so, she doesn’t want to be in a position of responsibility of leadership, but she’s considered a leader in the philanthropy world. You know, what I mean? So, it really depends.

Candice Wu 52:54

Absolutely. Right.

Mia Park 52:55

That being said, her and I got into my car, we drove all the way out to the far West suburbs to canvas and knock on doors for Lauren Underwood, who flipped an Illinois US Congress seat.

Candice Wu 53:10

That’s awesome.

Mia Park 53:11

So, I’m driving out there two hours West with my like, almost eighty-year-old yoga client. So, in a way, that’s her displaying leadership in the way that she could.

Candice Wu 53:24

Yeah.

Mia Park 53:24

You know, so again, it really depends on that, it depends.

Candice Wu 53:28

Well, and I think part of what you’re saying, at least as I’m hearing it is, there are so many ways we can display leadership or be a leader in ourselves.

Mia Park 53:38

Yeah.

Candice Wu 53:39

And part of it is about noticing what it is that is your new unique way? And what are you already doing?

Mia Park 53:45

Exactly. Knowing you know, why you, who you are in relationship to being a leader? So, being clear about intention, I don’t so much of our actions, if based and intention can be so some substantial, sustainable and like, just get more done, like why you want to be a leader, who you are, who you think you are, and who you are in the form of leadership. That, yes, you need to take knowing your strengths are as a leader.

Candice Wu 54:11

Yeah. Thank you.

Mia Park 54:13

Oh, my gosh, for having me.

Candice Wu 54:16

It’s been wonderful to have you. Is there anything else you want to share today before we go?

Mia Park 54:20

Yeah, Candice, you’re awesome woman, you keep doing what you’re doing. You are so at the same time professional and just have your act together, everything from your lovely graphics, to your messaging, to your scheduling, your professionalism with that. But what you’re being professional with is so beautiful and spiritual, and can be this esoteric thing that somebody can run away with, but you are practical, you are grounded, and you’re completely authentic, and so, thank you for all the great work that you’re doing.

Candice Wu 54:53

Og, my gosh. Thank you.

Mia Park 54:54

So true. I like looking at your newsletters, and I’m like, where, how does she got the time to do all this and where in the world is she right now, on a plane. I was like, you go. What is she doing? It’s amazing.

Candice Wu 55:09

It was like, I gotta do my newsletter by Friday, and I’m flying, so, here goes.

Mia Park 55:14

Here it goes. Love it, love it.

Candice Wu 55:16

Thank you so much, Mia. You are just brilliant out there in the world, and I think you are starting a podcast of your own?

Mia Park 55:23

I am, soon, soon. Yeah.

Candice Wu 55:24

The experiment of Living, is that right?

Mia Park 55:26

Yeah, The Experiment of Living.

Candice Wu 55:27

Oh, I cannot wait. I cannot wait.

Mia Park 55:30

I’d love to have you on some time, too.

Candice Wu 55:32

Oh, I would love to, I would love to. We’ll put a plug in for that when it shows up.

Mia Park 55:38

Thanks.

Candice Wu 55:40

Thank you so much. Take care.

Mia Park 55:42

You take care, Candice.

Candice Wu 55:44

Thank you so much, Mia, for being on the show. I learned a lot and had fun in the discovery of learning more of who she is and her ancestry. It was really fun, and thank you all out there for listening. If you want a taste of Mia’s work, I would recommend checking out her Yoga classes or Yoga Nidra classes as well. And later this week, if you want a little experience with her, you can tune into this meditation that she will offer on tuning into breath and being, feeling it to the curiosity of the life-giving force of breath. You can learn more about Mia and get engaged with the things that she offers, the things that she’s promoting in her world through MiaPark.com.

Candice Wu 56:33

And wishing you all a lovely and healthy New Year. I hope this was a lovely start of the year for you in thinking about your own ancestry story, your own resilience, and how you’d like to move in the world. I hope that you tune in again, next week we’re talking about ritual and how to create some meaningful rituals that support you in feeling like yourself this year.

Candice Wu 56:58

See you next time on the Embody Podcast

Candice Wu 0:00

Today, we have podcast guest, Mia Park, offering a meditation on tuning into breath and being, feeling into the alchemy of life-giving breath and listening to the body in a deep way. So, take five minutes and tune in with her in this lovely meditation. Mia is multicolored and multifaceted, and you can find her story and her ancestry story at CandiceWu.com/mia.

Mia Park 0:34

Let’s practice a simple and elegant meditation focusing on the breath. So, ideally, you’re sitting tall with the spine, upright. Feel free to sit in a chair if you need to or if you need to lie down, feel free to do that. Let’s breathe in and out of the nostrils, and feel the weight of the breath, moving in and out of the nose. Feel the volume of breath, feeling the gentle pressure in the nostrils from the breath, moving in and out.

If your mind starts to wander, just focus back on the breath. Gently guide your awareness back to the breath, moving in and out of the nostrils, listening deeply how the body is affected by a gentle, slow observation of the breath moving in and out of the nostrils.

Being curious about this life-giving force, this alchemy that transforms air into life-giving breath, as the breath moves in and out of the nostrils, and in and out of the body.

And now, shift your intention towards listening towards the body, practicing a deep listening of what’s happening in the physical body as you sit or lay still and focus on your breathing, noticing the heartbeat impulse, noticing the weight of the body on whatever you’re sitting or resting on, noticing the effects of focusing on the breath, practicing a deep listening of the body in stillness.

You may continue to listen deeply to the body, breathing, as long as you’d like. When you feel ready to come back to the waking world, listen again for the heartbeat and pulse in the body. Listen for a tingling, fullness, and war on the hands and feet in the body. You can taste saliva in the mouth, sense for sounds. Notice light between the eyelids as you slowly deepen the breath and gently bridge back into the waking world.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Sam 0:00

We’ve all cried and laughed, and I think that you can only do that when your spinning safe in the group that you’re showing that space with.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Jana 0:05

I should remember — that on the plane ride home, I was just journaling, like as much as possible and trying to capture as much of the feeling and the emotions and the insights and all the stuff because I knew that once I got back to regular life, I could remember it, and I would be able to hold it even though regular life was going to happen.

Candice Wu 0:16

This episode gives you an inside look at the Soul Body Women’s Retreat of October 2018 with special guests straight from the retreat itself and gives you a little taste of what a 5-night immersion retreat can do for you.

Candice Wu 0:30

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 0:39

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 1:18

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the body podcast. It’s really great to have you here. I wanted to give you just a quick update about where I am right now. I am sitting watching the sunset on the coast of Costa del Sol, which is on the southern coast of Spain. I’m a bit outside of Marbella, between Malaga and Marbella in this little village called, Benalmádena. I have been in Spain for a few weeks, it has been a really interesting experience.

Candice Wu 1:26

I love Spain because of the character, little villages and just a small-town feel set right in the mountains and the water here. I love the food, the Tapas, and also the language which I’m still learning, Spanish. It’s tricky to communicate sometimes because they don’t know that much. I can say more than I can hear. Because people often speak really quickly for me, but I’m enjoying that learning process.

Candice Wu 2:09

It has been a bit tricky to go from place to place in search of a more long term stay. And for me, the long term is like over a month. I’d like to stay with my partner here for about six weeks, at this point, it’s coming down to five now. But finding a place here is not as easy as it was in Chiang Mai, Thailand when I was there. Here, most people want long term stays, or it’s looking at Airbnb. But I think that in some other places that more nomadic people are like, Tarifa, there will be something for us.

Candice Wu 2:57

I’ve been able to do a little bit of riding, horseback riding and that’s been wonderful. But what happened during my second ride was I wasn’t used to this very large horse and also not used to cantering. So the combination of the two, I went a little too quickly for my lesson and I ended up falling off twice, which is really interesting to fall and to know the mechanics in a sense of the nervous system, and how the nervous system might be taking it or what I might need in that experience, to help my nervous system not hold this in as traumatic and to let that whatever fear response in my body to complete so that I don’t take that with me, and until the next experience.

Candice Wu 3:48

So I spent some time working with the falls and they weren’t too bad, which is good. But at some point, I would like to work with another practitioner, a fellow practitioner or colleague or someone I can find out here to just do a little extra work with it, to make sure that that’s resolved. Because I did feel a lot of fear come up.

Candice Wu 4:11

I did work with my own healing coach, and, in not specifically somatic ways, but what came up afterward was a lot of past life trauma, actually. And some people have asked me, how do I know it’s a past life trauma? I don’t really know until I know and I had this sort of sense of why am I so terrified? Why is this bringing up so much fear? It’s like, seemed like more fear than what was warranted.

Candice Wu 4:42

But when I was working with my healer, it came up and she had asked me, do you feel like this is from a past life? And as soon as I said, Yes, like all of this emotion, just like flooded my body and move through true, which was very validating to the fact that it did seem like a past life.

Candice Wu 5:05

I’d love to talk about this experience a little more in a future podcast and working that up right now. But I just wanted to give you a little sense of what I’ve been doing here, beyond horseback riding and adjusting and trying to find a place. I’ve been still podcasting and working with my clients, one on one online, as well as just taking in the scenery here and enjoying, actually all the unexpected things that are happening, including, just this big dog walking up to me at the moment as we speak. He’s one of the dogs that live on this property. So all sorts of spontaneous and unpredictable things here do trigger me a lot and it’s just quite an adjustment. Every time I go to a new place to work with whatever comes up and to release even more attachment to the things that I am attached to.

Candice Wu 6:08

I had said it in my newsletter, I will not sacrifice the timing of working with my clients and the internet quality as I’m working with them online. And so a lot of these unexpected things seem to rub up against that and I even had a flight cancellation recently, which threw off my entire schedule by three days. And I worked around my clients to figure out the next flight. So it’s quite an adventure and ongoing learning.

Candice Wu 6:41

So aside from my adventures here and my travels, I want to share about the Soul Body Women’s Retreat, which happened a couple of weeks ago. I am just so happy to be able to share this with you. And that some of the retreat members are going to be a guest on this podcast. They have given me their feedback and it’s lovely to hear, especially given what I intended for this retreat, and what we all wanted coming into the retreat.

Candice Wu 7:10

So let’s talk about the retreat.

Candice Wu 7:14

The retreat was six days and five nights right inside Zion National Park. It was literally inside the park, set in the mountains, on private property, with a villa owned by a couple named Hank and Angie, and it was called True North villa. I love the name of the villa because the theme about it was that everyone finds their own true north and that every North that you find is true to you, which was exactly what this whole retreat was about. It was about finding yourself, being in alignment with you, and living from the space of your own mystery and magic, your own light and brilliance.

Candice Wu 7:56

So, already from the beginning, it was synchronous and just touching. And as we stepped into the villa, there were tons of drums of all kinds, crystals everywhere, like, I can’t even believe how many crystals were there, every corner of the space was touched with beauty.

Candice Wu 8:20

I chose this space very intuitively and something in me just knew when I saw the pictures of the place that this would be just right. Something about the bridging of Hopi tribe, as well as Mormons in that area in the history of Zion National Park, the bridging of consciousness and religion, the diversity of those two cultures together, brought a very special meaning to the place and it felt like an incredibly rich land. It was very red. So it brought us right to the root of our bodies where that depth and richness of land and earth in connection with the sky, in connection with our spirituality, our body, and spirit.

Candice Wu 9:10

So Soul Body was the name of the retreat and part of this theme was that we work with all the aspects of the soul, all of soul karma, or the tendencies of who we are over history, past life, as well as ancestry to complete what’s there, only what’s necessary in order for us to be truly in touch and aligned with our spirit which is clear of any soul history and desire that’s based in past experience, and is very present and creative in this moment. So this earth and sky magical place, these mountains and open-air just lent itself to the magic of the healing and transformation that each of the women wanted on this retreat.

Candice Wu 10:13

I set up this retreat in a really special way. I wanted each woman to bring their specific intentions. And I had a consultation with each one of them prior to the retreat so that they could share with me where they were in their life and what they wanted, what they struggled with, and who they wanted to be. What they desired out of the retreat. And I think that was incredibly fruitful because, by the time everyone arrived, it was as if I already had a pulse on who they were, and what they wanted. And in that way, each woman cocreated this retreat and we developed the collaboration synchronously over the time we spent together.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Jana 10:55

You know, obviously, the fact that you had kind of a pre-session with everybody, was really awesome because it allowed everybody to, hey, I mean, for the people I don’t know you, it allows them to get comfortable with you, and allows them to ask whatever questions they might have. And I think it allows you to figure out, you know, where they’re at, and what they need.

Candice Wu 11:14

So over the course of the six days, we had time for Yoga, to support our bodies and movement. We talked about spirituality and the universe and how we manifest, how our bodies give expression to the intentions that are underneath both conscious and unconscious. We had meditation experiences right inside of the mountains and in caves. We took adventures in the leisure time where we got to go hiking or climb Angel’s landing, which is this steeper mountain that you can go up to where they say that angels land.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Sam 11:57

I don’t know how I even came across Angel’s Landing as a hike, I was probably googling things to do in Utah. But I just had this overwhelming sense that I needed to be there. And so as you know, became slightly obsessed with, getting everyone on board, on the Angel’s Landing bus to go there. So yeah, I mean, it’s just such, for me, I think being there yesterday was confirmation that I was meant to be there. It was a spiritual experience for me, just being there in the energy of the place, just the magnificence, the beauty of the place is just breathtaking. A mind-blowing moment of camaraderie and bonding, which is a shared experience, which I think we’ll all remember for different reasons, maybe.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Sam 12:46

But yeah, it’s amazing. And just being there was just confirmation that I knew I was meant to be there. I think some things in life, the people that you meet, or if you are called to go somewhere or, you know, experienced something, and you can’t quite put your finger on there. I think that’s just for me, it was just another evidence or another sign that sometimes you just need to trust in your, you know, your inner notches.

Candice Wu 13:14

Yeah.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Sam 13:14

To follow that.

Candice Wu 13:15

Right.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Sam 13:16

To follow your inner GPS, because you never know where it’s going to lead you to. And I think that I followed my inner delight, my body just fill up with joy and excitement and that was really, you know, being there at the top of Angel’s Landing, and I knew why.

Candice Wu 13:36

Some people took their leisure time to walk around the area of the villa, which had a medicine wheel, it had a labyrinth and could go to very private hikes and caves right in that area. And the deepest part of our work was spent doing Family Constellations, healing work, as well as Constellations with parts of ourselves, and dialoguing with different parts, as well as working with the body in more straightforward somatic ways to develop resilience and capacity, to feel more, to feel both joy and the challenges, the challenging emotions that are inside.

Candice Wu 14:22

And each person got a chance to have a specific time within the group and with the group interaction in a Constellation or in a certain experience that highlighted their personal healing and their desires, which gave way to some very powerful transformation for each of them in their own way. Some people came in with desires to feel more at ease in themselves and trust themselves. Some people came in wanting to work with a feeling of loneliness that they have and some deaths that had been in their lives, but the trajectory of their lives moving more towards health and what they desire and what they want.

Candice Wu 15:11

And others worked with money issues and releasing and sorting some past experiences that interfered with their daily life and stepped more into the independent power, the empowered self that they are that they know they are and which they wanted to cultivate more of.

Candice Wu 15:34

A lot of the work was deep and meaningful, but we also kept it light and played and had spontaneous times of drumming and dancing or just laughing together. And a huge part was the food that was inspired by Ayurvedic cooking by Robin Fisher. She is a massage therapist and Ayurvedic practitioner. Robin came on the trip to cook for us and to bring nourishment on many different levels, not just food levels, but supporting us in all ways and also being a part of the retreat, part of the healing and healing sessions, Yoga and meditation.

Candice Wu 16:22

She incorporated our different doshas and the needs of each of our bodies, plus the climate, the surroundings, and what we were doing in order to bring delicious meals for us, which, were just so special to eat together and eat mindfully and taste, such wonderful tastes in the midst of nourishing ourselves spiritually and physically.

Candice Wu 16:51

So some of the themes that I’m reflecting on that came up during the retreat were birthing and loving yourself, mother energy and healing, some pain and aloneness of men that came up in the healing process or shadow sides, connection and loneliness, experiences, completion, going beyond the soul karma and into spirit, into freedom and truth, money and the love that we want, the abundance that we want, releasing, sorting and selecting what we want to take with us forward, letting the fire within and outside of us transform, lightness and play.

Candice Wu 17:36

We also talked about the doshas, the different levels of our physiology, and how our beliefs take form and give expression to our energetic and physical bodies, and how we can tap into the most powerful healing inside of ourselves, to transform the outer world around us, for our lives and for the world.

Candice Wu 17:58

The whole experience to me was like creating this beautiful, magical sacred space, almost like a womb that held us in loving compassion, and in witness so that whatever needed healing could come through, and whatever transformation each person wanted, could shine into the light.

Candice Wu 18:21

Speaking of whom, we even had a chance, some of us to go to the Yoni cave, which was right around the corner from the villa. And this cave, I think, is just nicknamed, “The Yoni Cave”, is because it looks like a vagina, and even offshoots into two little side, like crevices, and those seemed like fallopian tubes. So we did a little bit of meditation inside of the Yoni cave, you can actually check out that meditation on Feminine Power and Creativity posted in the Embody Community on Facebook. It’s just a little taste of leisure time that we spent on the retreat and that’s with permission by the retreat members. So you can check that out at the Embody Community.

Candice Wu 19:11

And we looked at all of the different belief sets of who we are, that seem to be coming up for us, to reveal and to move and transcend. So after the retreat, I felt so embodied and more in myself, more like myself. And in talking with each of the retreat members, I got a variety of feedback from. I felt my acid reflux go away after two days too, I’m feeling so confident that I’m moving forward. I am so inspired to take the next step in my business. I’m revitalized and rejuvenated to take the steps I want to in my life, to other experiences, where people felt like they broke into some very deep parts of themselves that they may want some more healing with. And I think that’s all part of the process to hold space for all of those different parts of us, the inspired as well as the grieving and I’m just so glad that each of these women was able to bring themselves vulnerably and expose their hearts so that they could reach for what they wanted.

Candice Wu 20:31

So I want to give you a chance to hear their feedback, this is some of their feedback from the retreat at the end of it, as well as in the days after. So without further ado, let’s talk to some other retreat members.

Candice Wu 20:50

What have you found for yourself here, in terms of growth, what have you uncovered, and what makes it different for you?

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Sam 20:59

It’s hard to explain, articulate, but I think that just your unique blend of energy work, and just how you, just your, the true essence of the work that you do is very unique. You blend in a lot of different modalities, which for me, certainly been a learning experience as well, and a bit of an eye-opener. Saw a lot of your modalities I wasn’t even aware of, like Family Constellations. I just knew that even intuitively, that the, you know, the ancestral healing was something that perhaps, was something that I need to look at. Because, as you said, that I have done so much work on myself in terms of what I can control, you know, positive affirmations, I’m going to self-development programs, meditation, Yoga, and I just knew on a soul level that was probably something deeper, that was perhaps showing up in my life that I wasn’t even conscious of. And so, therefore, being on this retreat has really helped to really dive deeper beyond those layers in a way that’s very unique and that I can’t even describe. I’ll probably leave everyone else to go to the retreat, to experience it for themselves. And in fact, Diana, who’s on the retreat as well, you know, we were road trip buddies on the way down. And she said, I asked her, tell me a bit more about the retreat and she just said to me, You have to experience it for yourself. And so that was good for me, just to go in, move, an open mind, an open heart and experience it for yourself, because I’m sure everyone has their own experiments because everyone comes in with their own stories and their own needs for what they are looking to come out of the retreat with. And so I didn’t really want to compare, you know, just experience it, and go from there.

Candice Wu 22:28

So how have you found the Family Constellations work?

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 23:02

Family Constellations is powerful. It’s amazing to know and experience that healing can happen, regardless of what is happening in the “real world” with the other players that might be involved in a family situation that my own exploration of those topics and experience of them is enough to heal. I think that’s really powerful. And again, it’s great to have such a safe space that allows me to feel vulnerable enough to really tap into a lot of those scenes, that on, maybe a more day to day basis can be really tough to look at, and tough to uncover in on earth, you know, particularly alone, and particularly without those sorts of tools and skills.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 23:57

So it’s been really powerful and quite unlike anything that I’ve experienced in, and, you know, traditional talk therapy, you said something earlier this morning about how that sort of work might be retraumatizing because you just use very verbal processes, and you kind of circled around the same stories, and nothing really changes, nothing’s transformed, and Constellation work feels transformative.

Candice Wu 24:27

And as I mentioned before, different women had different ideas and intentions, different desires coming into this retreat, here are some of those desires.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Jana 24:37

I felt different, you know, before I came on the scene, that’s why I wanted to go. I had made some, like, really good changes. But now I feel like they’re much more clear. And I have a better kind of sense of who I am and what I want, and what’s important. And, you know, I just feel more empowered to, like, manifest the things that are important to me, you know, I’m on the verge of a new relationship. And I really wanted to deal with approaching that mindfully and in a way that I will lose myself and I feel, you know, that’s all kind of just happening very naturally, at the same time, like this kind of this new sort of philosophy on in, this new kind of desire of how to be and how to show up as my own individual self and maintain that. It’s very easy, it’s not like, I have to put forth the effort to be constantly like thinking about it. I think the work I did in the retreat has really helped me sort of solidify, that’s kind of my new way of being, without having to be super cognizant of that all the time, or feel like I’m trying to change myself. I feel like I’m just changed.

Candice Wu 25:07

And so what did you come in wanting?

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Sam 25:52

Yeah.

Candice Wu 25:53

And I have an idea, and I want to hear from you now.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Sam 25:56

So I’m kind of on the cusp of, you know, a point in terms of my life, both professionally and personally. And, you know, I guess I’m looking for some extra clarity around how I navigate through that, and some blocks in the personal front. So that’s what I was looking to come into the retreat to, you know, learn some extra tools, do a lot more self-inquiry beyond what I already am aware of, you know, how to learn different methods,

Candice Wu 26:25

Yeah.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Sam 26:27

Take things deeper as I said, be open to new techniques, and really just, you know, continue to evolve and expand myself, that’s really why I’m here. Always, one of the reasons why I go in these retreats is obviously to do Yoga because I need it right now. Work is very stressful. So there’s that piece where selfish now, you know, I want to relax, you know, come to a beautiful place like where we are now is just amazing, and enjoy that space and environment around us. But, you know, you have to engage with some like-minded souls also to expand.

Candice Wu 27:02

Absolutely. And have you, what do you feel will change for you as you move forward? And what will you take from the experience?

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Sam 27:11

Yeah, just, I guess, a new and different way of thinking. Just to add to my existing Sam toolkit

Candice Wu 27:20

Your existing what?

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Sam 27:21

Sam toolkit.

Candice Wu 27:25

I know that you’re in some transitions in your life, or possible ones are that they’re emerging with your purpose, with career, with who you are, how do you feel, or imagine that your life’s going to shift from what we’ve transformed here or on earth or tuned into?

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 27:51

Yeah. I think the biggest thing for me is that regardless of the material outcomes of where I end up in my, in the next few years in my life, I’m considering a big career change and I think regardless of whether I, you know, quit the day job tomorrow and throw myself right into entrepreneur, into entrepreneurial practices, or, you know, kind of take a little bit of time to feel it out and dip my toes into it a little bit more slowly. I think that regardless of whatever I end up choosing, I know that I’ll be making that decision from a place of again, really self-love and self-respect. In the past, whenever I’ve thought about these, you know, big life decisions, there’s a lot of self-judgment that comes with that and a lot of fear and anxiety around not making the right decision and not feeling like I have enough to be successful in whatever I’m choosing. And it’s become really real for me over the last few days that I can choose and I can make anything I want to work and I really believe that for the first time, that really feels feasible and real and not just you know some mantra that I’m saying to myself over and over with empty meaning, so that’s huge for me. Yeah.

Candice Wu 29:20

That huge for anyone.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 29:21

Totally. So, I guess you could boil it down to a greater sense of competence and more energy and invigoration. I’ve also had the pleasure of, you know, meeting all sorts of really great, knowledgeable people on the retreat who have given me all sorts of really great practical advice.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 29:41

I am transitioning into practicing astrology full time, and of course, I do a lot of birth chart readings for individuals and, you know, starting to market myself for those skills. But I’ve had all sorts of people in the retreat suggests that I do things like YouTube videos and community workshops and free live readings on social media, and all sorts of cool strategies that I hadn’t considered. But now, I’m excited about and it doesn’t seem scary. It seems fun and exciting and full of possibilities.

Candice Wu 30:17

For some, the food was a very important aspect, especially Robin, who cooked for us. So let’s hear a little bit from Robin.

Candice Wu 30:28

So, I’d love to hear from you. How was it for you? And what did you, what was your intention coming in the retreat?

Robin Fisher 30:35

Yeah, thank you.

Robin Fisher 30:37

It was very interesting because I looked at it as you know, one of my first big adventures professionally. I’ve done cooking Ayurvedically the last three or four years but not at this scale. So it was definitely a challenge that I was excited to confront. But yeah, my intention was made clear when you asked what our intentions were on the first night, so that was very helpful for me to just kind of sit with, you know, yeah, why am I here just for a moment to slow down and think about it.

Robin Fisher 31:19

But yeah, in this time and place in our existence, I was, I really feel that I am drawn to nourish women and in all, that can mean mentally and physically and having the chance to kind of slowly help the women of the retreat kind of learn what it looks like, what it tastes like to eat seasonally, and holistically, was really special because once I’ve gained the, you know, the base skills of cooking, Ayurvedically, it really opened me up to, to work with my intuition and not necessarily be really strict with recipes, which I think most cooks understand that they have hit a new level when it’s not like, okay, it has to be perfect and it has to be this specific amount. And it’s more about being a part of the food and tasting, continuously tasting, feels like my essence was becoming more about food than I ever have experienced before. So that was really fun.

Candice Wu 32:42

Yeah, that’s really cool. I heard a lot of comments from the members of the retreat saying, Wow, I just loved how Robin was stirring that stew.

Candice Wu 32:55

She was like, doing it so deliciously and relaxed and it seemed like it really left an imprint on people.

Robin Fisher 33:04

Yeah, which is hilarious. Because, you know, I was just taking all of my energy to really stay focused on the task at hand. And that kind of freak out about what I had to do next for the next meal, like, you know, because I’m having a whole week of a meal. So think about it like, and just kind of play around with this fun to a certain degree. But there’s so much mental space for it. And so I really was able to sit back with my own breath work, which I also learned while I was learning Ayurvedic cooking.

Robin Fisher 33:49

Because I didn’t really do a lot of supportive breathing for most of my life. And so, knowing that breathing and body mechanics and all of the things that I learned that helps support me in massage therapy are, like, completely transferable to cooking. What energy do you bring to the room, it can be like, Oh, I have to cook for seven people all week. And it’s just like, so much work, or like, oh, what can I create here today, you know, and like, realizing that I had a certain amount of control over how I was going to experience the retreat. And it didn’t have to be something that happened to me, having body mechanics, it’s just, like, so supportive.

Robin Fisher 34:38

Just like, if you’re cutting up like a pile of vegetables, you know, multiple times a day, you know, and if you’re, like, all, like, super inward and not fully breathing, and just clenching. Like, all of that energy is going into the food as well. And I really didn’t want the anxiety that I can feel, in an unfamiliar situation to be ingested, took more focus, than I’ve ever really used to make sure that was, the nourishment and love was going into the food rather than fear and anxiety.

Candice Wu 35:21

Yeah, and it was cool what you did too was each meal, you made suggestions, or offerings that did go with each person’s dosha, or a suggestion that, if they’re feeling a little more heat, or if they’re this specific dosha, they might add in more cilantro to cool or, this, add in more of this to feel more warmed inside. So that was neat to have those choices, that information for everyone.

Robin Fisher 35:54

Yeah, I think that’s been the most helpful thing is understanding that you can make a base that’s good for everyone. And then having the sides that cool or heat or make it more oily or dry. And you can really adjust a dish for each person. And once they can understand what they need, they can do it themselves.

Candice Wu 36:23

And to give you a taste of what people tasted from the delicious meals, here are just some thoughts about how the food was incorporated into this retreat.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Jana 36:37

Wonderful, because A, I mean, the person who created was with us, so it just kind of made it all the more sort of inclusive and knowing that we were eating and sort of this holistic, you know, based food that was coming from this place of love, it was just so good. And, you know, it was kind of, in this cold place and a lot of the food was very warm and filling and it just felt nourishing. I know that kind of was her goal was to create, like, this nourishing environment. And it really did, and it really made it because, you know, it’s also it’s a mind-body connection, right? So, imagine that you’re, you know, doing, being, you know, physically active, eating, filling your body with good, wholesome food, you know, that’s important too.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Sam 37:26

It’s nice to have healthy, flavorful food that’s nourishing you. It’s like, now, she knew from a physical perspective but also, for me, like food is, I love food, so it’s always nourishing your soul as well. So you do a lot of deep inner work. And, you got Yoga, it’s almost like that food helps nourish that, you know, that fuel, that spiritual fuel. And I just think that, being Ayurvedic, food is very congruent with just the retreat.

Candice Wu 37:59

There are things about the retreat that just cannot be described and some of those things include the conversations and experiences that happened during the off times of the workshops, during leisure times or during dinner, and in-between spaces, the ones that were deeply profound, and integrating, and sometimes incredibly connecting. So here are some other thoughts from people about what they received on the retreat.

Candice Wu 38:30

What do you feel like you got out of it this year, you know, especially since you had all that experience last time, and you’ve grown so much from that?

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Jana 38:41

Yeah, well, the reason I wanted to go, and what I really do feel that I got out of it is that I feel like recently, I’ve made a couple of changes in my life. And sort of the way I’ve been looking at things and dealing with some kinds of stuff and specifically for me, I was kind of trying to close the doors and things of the past. And I really feel like, I got to do that in a very mindful and productive and supportive way, in a way that I could kind of come home, fresh and felt like I was ready to start kind of almost like a new chapter.

Candice Wu 39:12

Can you say more about, you know, what you were not so sure about and how it ended up being? Because I think it was a very unique experience.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Jana 39:21

It definitely was. I mean, I think in general, a lot of Family Constellation works deals a lot with families and, you know, resolving, you know, maybe some unconscious issues you might have with your family systems. And I, that doesn’t happen to be an area of contention for me. I have, like, an amazing support system with my family and I didn’t feel like there were any specific areas I needed to address in that. And so, but you were able to really adjust it. So it was my internal family system that we focused on, which was really cool to sort of watch the different parts of myself come alive, which was really a unique spin on it that I’ve never seen, I’ve never experienced something like that, you know, either as a participant or as a center focus. And that it worked. It totally worked.

Candice Wu 40:11

Yeah, it was really cool to work on the different inner parts of you in that. And I think what also I got from what you wanted was, you wanted an empowering experience, you wanted something transformational that brought to forward and not looking backward and something to support you in feeling into this great pass that you were already launching yourself into.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Jana 40:38

Yeah, totally. And I was a little nervous that, like, I’d have to go back and deal with the past. And I didn’t feel like that was really necessary. So I was like, how are we going to do this, but, you know, that’s what I think is so special about you, as a, you know, retreat leader, you’re so good at adjusting to the needs of each individual person on the trip and in honoring their experience and honoring their specific needs. Because obviously, I mean, we’re all different individual people going through a different individual thing, and it’s not a one size fits all model. And that, I think, is a very challenging thing to do. And you do it with so much ease and grace and respect. And it was really awesome.

Candice Wu 41:18

Okay, there’s just a little bit more. Elena, you said this, that speaking on this podcast was part of your process, or part of your growth step as well and this opportunity, and I heard you on Angel’s Landing the other day, “I have something to prove to myself.”

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 41:33

Yeah.

Candice Wu 41:34

What is this about for you?

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 41:36

I think a couple of things. So, I realized yesterday on this long, intense, strenuous hike that we were doing that I was very nervous about doing beforehand, how much of my life I live. I have lived dictated by fear and that experience of climbing up this steep mountain with nothing but chain supporting us at several points, was really an exercise in coming from a place beyond fear and being able to feel it and perhaps transcend it in a way and work through it and see it as constructive and a tool for growth.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 42:14

And one thing that has always been very scary for me is speaking publicly, communicating openly and vulnerably with others and so I really wanted to challenge myself to speak on this podcast segments and really wanted to challenge myself also to speak openly and vulnerably without any sort of notes or, you know, talking points or a script. And so that’s exciting for me. And I was just saying to Candice, as we pause the audio, that wasn’t so bad. It’s nice to be able to share like this.

Candice Wu 42:48

Yeah.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 42:49

It’s fun and I feel — it’s good to be able to express and be open about that and not scared.

Candice Wu 42:57

Wow, you really overcame. I don’t know if I like the word overcome and overcame?

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 43:04

Sure.

Candice Wu 43:04

Maybe that’s it for you. I don’t know. But you moved through that fear.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 43:10

Right. I’m not scared of being scared any longer. I can work with fear. It can be — perhaps I’m not in a place yet where I am able to see it as a constructive tool. But it’s not obstructive any longer.

Candice Wu 43:25

It’s not a roadblock.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 43:26

Yes. Definitely.

Candice Wu 43:28

Something different, yet to be determined.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 43:30

Something to work with.

Candice Wu 43:31

Yeah.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 43:32

Yeah, in some way.

Candice Wu 43:33

Yeah. Thank you.

Candice Wu 43:36

Oh, my gosh, yeah. How have you felt here and what has been good for you here?

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Sam 43:40

Yeah, so obviously Candice as I was telling you that I just feel that, it’s almost like this whole retreat has synchronicity written all over it. And to be honest, I was just blown away by just the space that you were drawn to, the North Star Villa?

Candice Wu 43:59

True North.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Sam 44:00

Oh, True North. Thank you.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Sam 44:03

You know, in Zion National park. First of all, the surrounding is just stunning, you’re surrounded by the mountains. You know, the view you wake up to every morning. And the fact that it’s surrounded by crystals, there’s just this beautiful energy about this place. So much love has gone into this environment by the owners. And that kind of warms my heart, it’s got a lot of character, a lot of love. And I think that, the love of the owners that they’ve brought into this place kind of exudes that energy, right. And so, therefore, it’s a really perfect environment for you to hold your retreat. It had everything, all the props you could have imagined, you know, drums, crystals, wind chimes, you know, a labyrinth, the, you know, a medicine wheel, it’s just, it’s almost like you had visualized your perfect retreat location and the universe delivered it to you in the middle of a national state park. It was just, pretty mind-blowing.

Candice Wu 45:09

What I found is that the space for deeper transformation can feel safe, given the right circumstances, when you feel that you’re held in a safe space, that all emotions are held in this space, and also supported, and when we acknowledge and respect everything that comes through no matter how “weird” people find it to be, which to me, nothing’s really that weird. But I really appreciated what people said about the safety of the retreat and what they felt in relation to me and others on the retreat. Here are some of those thoughts.

Candice Wu 45:47

What have you been doing on this retreat that’s been meaningful for you?

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 45:51

The retreat has been a really good opportunity for me to rest, connect, and reprioritize. I’ve had a really great time meeting everyone else that’s here, really great time exploring nature and exploring the connection to nature, reintegrating with myself, and learning about all different sorts of healing modalities and energy work, and picked up a lot of really practical skills that I can bring back for my own personal use when I go back home. I really appreciate that there’s been a space that’s cultivated here, that’s really special and that’s really unique and that really can’t be replicated elsewhere, that’s really magical. But we’ve also been learning, yeah, all sorts of different skills and practices that can be used in everyday life. So a really great mix of both.

Candice Wu 46:46

But what have you found as a tool or thing that you felt like, yeah, I can really take that home with me to use in my daily life?

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 46:56

Yeah, I think the biggest, single most practical skill is probably the resourcing technique that you went over with us this morning, actually.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 47:06

So I’m someone that tends to get very, you know, overwhelmed and activated in stressful situations. And I tend to go to a place of just getting stuck in negative emotions, and feeling really down on myself because of that. And I think the resourcing technique that we talked about is really cool because it’s something that you can use, regardless of where you are, regardless of what’s going on around you. And it’s something that you can really do for yourself. And I think that’s been a big theme throughout the retreats.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 47:42

It’s bigger than, than self-love, I think, which is something that gets thrown around a lot in all different sorts of practices. I would say that, really, what I’ve honed in on the past few days, has been self-respect and trust in oneself, knowing that with something like, resourcing, I don’t need to go elsewhere. I don’t need to turn to anything else or another practitioner, but that I have all the tools I need within myself, and whatever environment I’m in to nourish myself and bring myself to a better place when I’m feeling activated. So I’m really optimistic about the way that I’m going to be able to use that going forward.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 48:23

Another really big and related theme that has become really real for me over the past few days, is coming from a place of self-love and nourishment in resourcing, and taking myself to the next level at any healing, I again, would tend to use a very sort of a brace of approach and almost tried to, you know, beat a lot of different messages into myself, which, you know, is counterintuitive or counterproductive, I should say. And I think that for the first time in my life, I’m really feeling the impacts of coming from a place of nourishment and love for oneself.

Candice Wu 49:02

Oh wow.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Elena 49:04

You know, I’ve heard those words in a lot of different situations, and in a lot of different contexts. But it’s never really resonated within me. But a lot of the very body-centered exercises that we’ve done, and just, again, creating the space for reflection, and I think safe boundary-pushing has been really helpful in getting me there.

Candice Wu 49:27

Is there anything else you want to share?

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Jana 49:30

I just feel so happy and lucky and honored to get to do these types of things with you, especially because, like, you know, we do have this unique relationship. And that we have done a lot of work together in the past, and we saw each other, like, weekly, we have this sort of very traditional kind of working relationship. And then, you know, you left to go travel the world and pursue your dreams, and do all these amazing things that I didn’t know that I would get the opportunity to continue doing some of the amazing stuff that I do. And this way of doing it together and get to, you know, take a couple of days every year and get to spend time with you. And, working on some of the most meaningful pieces of the work that we’ve done together is just such a cool way to kind of honor it, and maintain the best parts of getting to work with you. So I’m just so happy that you do it. And I hope you keep doing them.

Candice Wu 50:19

Thank you. I’m so grateful that we get to do that too. It’s really cool to have that kind of, that different kind of relationship at this point. And we’ve gone through so much together, and I’ve seen you through so much of your growth. And it’s so exciting to see where you are now.

Candice Wu 50:41

What makes a retreat like this, a meaningful experience, or what makes this different for you?

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Jana 50:46

Well, it is totally, it was like, five days of intense focus on it. And I just remember that on the plane ride home, I was just journaling, like, as much as possible, and trying to capture as much of like, the feeling, and the emotions and the insights and all the stuff because I knew that once I got back to regular life, like, I’d remember it, and I would hold it, but regular life what’s going to happen and I was going to get busy with work and I was going to get distracted and stresses we’re going to happen. And, you know, it was really a way to, you know, because even doing, you know, therapy or, you know, this type of work, you know, mix into your everyday life is obviously very helpful. But to kind of take this time out to specifically focus on it makes it so much more powerful. And especially again, being in this place that we were, we had, we were just in this like magical place in the desert with the mountains and crystals and drums and like it just turned into this beautiful spiritual experience that — many people don’t, I think, have an opportunity to really immerse themselves in like that. And that’s, I think the difference is very immersive, but not in an overwhelming way. And not in, you know, we have downtime, we have time to go hike, gave me a time to hang out, we have time to read. It wasn’t like, it was like, all like deep work all the time, you know, it was a nice balance and really good.

Candice Wu 52:08

Is there anything else you want to share about what has been meaningful for you, or what nuggets you’ve received or what pieces of your unearthing came up?

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Sam 52:22

Just very humbling, that everyone is just so willing to be their authentic selves. And just to open up to the experience. I think you can only really benefit fully from the retreat if you have the courage and the willingness to open your heart and share yourself with others. Right? And so learn from each other. And I think that’s what’s, had a deeper meaning to the exercise that we’ve been doing is the fact that you have created that self-space and that safe space that everyone has felt so comfortable and invested to get in the best they can from it, you know, emotionally as well, you know, we’ve all cried and laughed. And I think that you can only do that when you’re spinning safe in the group that you’re showing that space with. And often you have a retreat leader that’s leading the retreat in a way that encourages them. So thank you.

Candice Wu 53:19

You’re welcome. And thank you so much.

Soul Body Retreat Guest — Sam 53:21

Yeah.

Candice Wu 53:23

I appreciate so much all the women who came on this retreat. I’m just so touched by the experiences that we had and the gratitude that I have for how magical the experience was, how beautiful and how healing and how open we all were with each other is just something that I will never forget.

Candice Wu 53:45

And I want to send a special thanks to Robin as well, as part of that. Her intention was to nourish women and she absolutely did that. She was wonderful and I look forward to working with her again.

Candice Wu 53:58

And I also want to give a shout out to Chris Spiegl, who is my partner, he was on the retreat as well. And in between the boundaries of our work, he was running errands or building an upside-down fire, which is a really cool thing. It’s a fire upside down. Also, he was taking the official photos for the retreats and supporting the tech behind the scenes, as well as creating the website design for the retreat all together and all of the production beforehand.

Candice Wu 54:38

I also want to thank the Earth, mother nature, and sky for holding the space, the physical space for healing, the villa itself, and the owners of the villa, Hank and Angie, all the angels, spirits and guides, as well as ancestors of each of the people that were involved in the retreats and came on the retreat for all of that was part of our work. And it gave away to the messages that each person received for themselves, and the healing that happened inside of their beings and in their bodies.

Candice Wu 55:16

I also want to give a shout out to all the people that supported in some way, whether that was sharing the retreat with a friend, a sister, a loved one, or a client or colleague, thank you so much. I appreciate all of the thoughts that you’ve sent my way about the retreat, the good energy, and the referrals. All of that made this possible, and I could not have asked for more.

Candice Wu 55:41

So as we close the podcast today, I want to offer just one more thought about retreats.

Candice Wu 55:47

A retreat is so nourishing because you can immerse yourself over time, take time for yourself — if the schedule allows for that which this retreat was specifically designed that way to integrate your experiences — to have movement and leisure time, to have deep meaningful connection and the space to go very deeply with exactly what’s happening in your life, and to be supported in embodied transformation around that and loving yourself. This retreat reminds me that immersion experiences like this have just an incredible capacity to bring so much life and enjoyment and healing.

Candice Wu 56:36

I encourage you whether it’s my retreat in the future or another retreat that catches your eye to try something like that. Because if it’s the right fit, it can be incredibly powerful.

Candice Wu 56:49

If you’d like to stay tuned to future retreats from me, whether that’s a couple’s or individual or women’s retreat, you can stay posted on my website Candicewu.com or sign up for my newsletter at CandiceWu.com/embody.

Candice Wu 57:05

Wishing you well and just sending all of this peaceful, mostly peaceful, energy from Spain. Just looking out at the cityscape now, it’s dark, you’ve heard the dogs around me. I hope that wasn’t too bothersome. But this is just part of the noise set that’s here where I am. Thanks so much for joining me and I’ll see you next time on the Embody Podcast.