Candice Wu 0:00

I don’t know about you, but some of my best ideas come when I’m least expecting it. Yes, sometimes they happen when I’m on the toilet or when I’ve just hopped in the shower or right before I fall asleep or wake up in this sort of liminal space, but this episode is about cultivating your daydreamer, your ability to daydream and tap into the symbolic imaginal space of your soul, to nourish who you are, your intuition and the depth of what wants to come through and reveal itself through you.

Candice Wu 0:38

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 0:51

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 1:13

Hi, everyone. Welcome back. Last week we had our hundredth episode of the body podcast with Roxanne Partridge, so, we had our hundredth birthday with a very special person that actually has the same exact birthday to the year as I do, within six hours. So, this episode is Episode 101, which is crazy, so, we broke 100, thanks for joining in the journey with me and being here, and I thought it would be just wonderful to follow up with this episode about daydreaming.

Candice Wu 1:52

Daydreaming has been really present with me because I’ve wanted more space to do it, and I know that when I leave time to to be without agenda, to release my attention on the outer things of the world, my daily tasks, to turn off that mental logic and let the soul logic come online, I receive and see so much juiciness, vibrancy, nourishment and I get lots of awesome ideas, some that I just feel delighted in and delighted in, in the moment and just discard very quickly and some that I take with me into the next year, and some, that just momentarily give me pleasure or what’s the word, entertainment, but also I get a lot of connection with the depth of who I am, my intuition my inner self, the story of who I am and the mystery of my experience, and that leaves me feeling very nourished, grounded and plugged into my soul.

Candice Wu 3:15

And with Roxanne Partridge coming on the show last week, I felt even more inspired to be in that imaginal, symbolic, juicy, space of the unconscious, the underworld in the underbellies of our being and what lives under the surface, what wants to be seen, revealed, unfurled, the wild nature that we are, and so, daydreaming was the direction I went.

Candice Wu 3:47

So, before we jump into this, I want to mention that the Ally with Death Audio Experiential has been out there a couple of weeks now, and it’s this very beautifully stirring and provocative audio soundtrack with hand pan music by my friend Larry Saint Germain. It’s gorgeous, and it connects up with my voice prompting you through a series of simulation and series of questions, leading you through your own death, so that you face the things that want to be let go, and you take a good look at them. We end and release what is already decaying or needs to die, to create the space for new life and to look at what is meaningful for you now, and where is your playful, curious, sensing, intuitive self and to let that shine up so that you can really live your life in a beautiful way coming up this next couple of weeks and into the spring, and that sale is going to be from December 15, 2019, until January 6, 2020.

Candice Wu 5:05

So, it’s a lovely way to bring in your new year and to set forth the seeds that will be planted, and I know that some people are using this with a loved one as a ceremony or ritual before winter sets in and some are making some plans to do this on a special night. I know that some people have even done it on New Year’s Eve which is just a cool time to do it, and some do this on the new moon or at some point in their moon cycle. Whenever you do it, I truly recommend it if you want to release the weight that has been building up inside of you, the clutter and to cleanse, so that you feel alive in the present and vibrant like who you are. You can find this at CandiceWu.com/death, and again, the sale is from December 15th through January 6th, so, enjoy as the death that we allow inside of ourselves bring us new life.

Candice Wu 6:11

And as we jump into this episode, I want to just ask you, is this a time and space for you to go inward? Is your energy moving more inward for you or is it going more outward? Is it time to do things in your outer world? Put your energy out there, connect with others. More so, for me right now it’s been going inward and hibernating, and in that little space, I love to cook home-cooked foods and create things, sleep a lot, watch something that feels soothing to watch like something on Netflix. I love to have intimate conversations with friends and loved ones and it’s harder for me to reach out to new people or to put my energy outward and workshops and things like that, and doing things that require my energy to move more outward.

Candice Wu 7:13

Sometimes, it’s been hard to honor that as I have this little part of my mind that thinks, “Oh, you should be doing something more, you should be doing X, Y, and Z.” And I just work with talking to that part of me and seeing what they have in store or what they have thought for me, and usually, it just needs a little update about what it’s safe to do now in my life and what it’s time for. So, I invite you to do the same, is to connect with where your energy really wants to be, how it wants to be, and to make an agreement with yourself that that is allowed that you want that and to look at the parts of you that may have something to say against that. All of those parts of you have some message for you, and it’s important to hear them all out, at least to hear them and then you get to decide how to negotiate bad or what wants healing and wants to be honored.

Candice Wu 8:27

So, this is perfect for our topic today of daydreaming. And for me, daydreaming is really about leaving space for the unexpected. When we set out with our to-do lists our agendas, what our logical mind wants to do in this functional practical world, which is a good thing. When we do that, every minute of the day, there’s very little space for imagination, for play, for curiosity, sensing, and intuition to flourish and make its own way towards us, reach us and touch our hearts. When we have that agenda, it’s hard for something unplanned to come in, something new or spontaneous, unimaginable. Daydreaming is like spending time allowing your soul to dance, allowing your imaginal and symbolic self through images, feelings, senses, sensation in the body, a hit of knowing a song, a sound for all that to emerge and make its way to consciousness for the personal, archetypal, collective, unconscious realms to have a place through us, that shows us the depth of who we are, the depths of what wants to be looked at, what wants attention and the depths of the soul do not care about time, space or mental logic.

Candice Wu 10:20

And so, in that space, we let our mind rest and that gives the space of freedom, the breathing room that our spirit wants. It gives our spirit the space to open up, to vibrate at the essence of your core being, of course with practice, and to align you with who you truly are, with your nature, with your heart, with the specific energetic coding that signature that is you, takes you out of the collective poll of where were pressured to do and who were pressured to be, plugging you into the source of you, and the source of all things.

Candice Wu 11:27

When I daydream, and that sounds to me like a very active process and the real action is just setting aside the time and maybe, doing a few things that let me connect in, with then it becomes a more, I’m not sure if I would say passive, but an allowing space that is without force and natural, organic, a space of witnessing what’s moving through me, what I’m feeling, what I’m sensing, and sometimes, what arrives are aspects of myself that want to be heard or healed or expressed in my daily life.

Candice Wu 12:15

Sometimes, past lives have come to me or entities that feel like they have something to offer me, that are of me, or connected with me. Sometimes, I just have nonsensical thoughts that spring up and seem funny or weird or different. Sometimes, these connect up with real practical and inspired ideas, and other times, it just fuels something of my creative life, and what I love is that it brings me to this messy, unkempt, unsanitized vibrancy of aliveness that is full of possibility that’s not just stripped down or forced into one way of being, but connected to my knowing, perhaps new ideas or awarenesses are already trying to reach you, and with a day to day schedule that doesn’t quite allow for these to marinate in you or to incubate or sift to the surface, then these very important pieces of you may go unseen, important ideas, desires, rich desires, those may be just suppressed.

Candice Wu 13:48

The messages that are coming from within you and through you, the mystery of your life doesn’t quite have so much mystery anymore or aliveness or adventure or exploration. It just has a forced direction, of course, that’s a very exaggerated sense, but there’s a way in which when I am go, go, go and have my to-do list and have my plan set out, I really flattened my experience.

Candice Wu 14:19

So, this podcast today is an invitation for you to nourish and cultivate the symbolic and imaginal space of your spirit, to feed your soul, to feed the wild in you, to bring you to your natural self that wants to be seen and acknowledged and integrated into your daily life and to strengthen your ability to see, to see not only yourself at a deeper level, but to see the grander picture for yourself, to see a playful experience, exploration, give value and worth to the beat and the pulse of your soul, the messages of your spirit, the parts of you that really know, truth, really know how to be easeful that are connected with this deeper source of life-giving energy, the essential being that wants to come through.

Candice Wu 15:35

So, I want to talk about several ways to access and open up your daydreaming space, your dream space, and I also want to mention that sometimes it can be very hard to connect with your dream space because there are other feelings that want to be seen or healed or acknowledged at the forefront. This is especially if you’ve had experiences that have been undigested or leaving you with a trauma response or been overwhelming that when you slow down and give space without any plan that those feelings may want to arrive at your door. And if that’s the case, I would recommend getting support if you need it, tuning into some of the experiences on the podcast that support grounding or pendulating so that you can help your capacity grow, to navigate these feelings, to build your resilience and to move through some of the traumatic response.

Candice Wu 16:49

And as a basic support, if you become overwhelmed during the process of getting into your dream space or being in it or if you start to feel a little bit like these feelings that are coming through are just a little bit too big for my body to handle, and just stop and look around your space and look for something pleasant. Look for something that can give you some sense of safety in the moment, that you’re really safe right here and now or some feeling of pleasure that allows you to feel your embodied safety, and to take in that resource, that pleasant thing to look at or a person that’s nearby that can be supportive and remind you of being in this present moment. I would recommend doing that anytime you start to feel like it’s a little too much.

Candice Wu 17:43

So, some really good ways to access your dream space, your waking dream space or to connect with a part of your body that feels neutral, pleasant, grounded or calm and just feel that part of the body, and then begin to let your mind wander and wonder in its own way, your attention just witnessing anything that comes. You can also do a body scan is from head to toes, feel your body, notice and witness each part of the body, allowing your senses to turn on. You could make contact with your body by touching from head to toe, and feeling what kind of touch feels supportive. So, each of these is really to bring yourself from that logical mental go, go, go space to sensing, feeling, and being.

Candice Wu 18:46

If you need some support with that, you can tune in to some of the experientials I have. There’s one at Episode 59, Experiencing with the Five Senses of Body Scan. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/ep59. Another one to tune into is Grounding Touch and Listening. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/ep47. Another way to connect in is just to begin to witness and observe your own experience like a movie. Very simple thing to do is notice a couple of breaths just as they are, as you let go of your day, release any of your attention from going outward on your to-do list or your daily tasks and turn that attention inward with curiosity and openness, anything really that brings your attention to or heightens the senses is going to help you turn on that more right-brain activity of being, sensing, seeing, feeling and connecting with the deeper parts of who you are.

Candice Wu 20:04

So, for example, listening to music that you enjoy, tasting something delicious and savoring it, taking a good whiff of essential oils, touching or holding something that makes you feel good, like crystals or blankets, stuffed animals, your own body, as we mentioned before. So, these are just a few tips to open up your access point to your dream space, and as you sink into your dream space, the more you’re able to just let go of your attention on your mental life and your logic, and the sense-making that goes on, analyzing, just letting that go on a bookshelf in your imaginal mind if you need more of a visual, and that can let you really sink into being.

Candice Wu 21:02

This is the space of the felt sense and the space where you can catch a dream, rather than dreaming. It’s like catching a dream or harvesting the messages, awarenesses, the knowings, the creativity, the energy that’s alive through you, and that is you, to catching your dream, noticing it, noticing what thoughts and feelings come up and just following it with your curiosity and your openness, not having to make sense of anything in particular and not judging anything that comes through. Letting things come through without filter, and letting your knowing be your knowing. Letting your friends’ perception, be your perception and what is happening to happen, to let what is alive in you and coming through you to be alive and be noticed. To let juiciness come through what is wildly unknown, unseen. You never know what may appear or what will happen when there isn’t that agenda, when there’s just a space for nothingness for being, for agreeing to being in this moment without any plan, without any expectation.

Candice Wu 23:00

So, is this a kind of experience that you want to give yourself more often or give yourself altogether? Do you let yourself have any time to just daydream or to catch a dream? Is your soul or your heart calling you to do this more often? Do you have a feeling of stuckness or you can’t quite move through to the next level of yourself or writer’s block or artist’s block, creativity block, feeling like what you’re doing in your life is not quite aligned with your vibrancy or love or desire or passion? And if so, daydreaming might be part of the answer for you.

Candice Wu 24:01

So, this is a pretty short episode today, and I’m curious what you all have to say or what comes up for you about daydreaming or about having this on planned, fertile space and ground for your soul to thrive and to be seen, to unleash, to come to the surface. I love to hear your thoughts, your envisioning or the inspirations that might come from just practicing this, and what I’ll do later this week is offer a brief meditation to support accessing the dream space and to be with you through a segment of dream time where we can let this messy, aliveness, be heard and held. So, stay tuned for that or you can just jump in right on to my website and find that experiential at CandiceWu.com/daydream.

Candice Wu 25:08

Thanks for tuning in today about this topic that can really allow our souls to wake up even more. I invite you to let the mystery of your life and your story, your soul to come alive and to spend a little more time daydreaming. Thanks so much for showing up today. If you’d like to stay, plugged in with me through my newsletter, you can find that at CandiceWu.com/embody, and there I update you about events, podcasts, experientials and news about my life, and what is being offered as well as self-love notes that come, and this is just about a once a month or every three-week newsletter.

Candice Wu 25:58

Before you go, I also want to drop a little note about the podcast and the meditations that are on the podcast, that all the podcasts that have been published every 101 of them are searchable via the database on my website. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/podcast and search any topic, and if you want to find the meditations and experientials, those are specifically at CandiceWu.com/meditations. So, for example, if you’re looking for something on loving yourself or working with your energetic vibration or relationship breakups, you can search something in that database and see what pops up.

Candice Wu 26:44

Thanks so much for joining me today and wishing you a lovely dream time if you decide to plan that into your week, and I look forward to seeing you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00
This experiential is to support you in surrendering into a state of being that opens curiosity, witness, and spaciousness for daydreaming.

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.

In this experiential, I will offer a few out of many different ways to come into a spaciousness for daydreaming. You may have your own ways already, that's great, and this may or may not work for you, so, really see what your body and your nervous system would need. If you'd like to learn more about the benefits of daydreaming and just hear some of my thoughts about daydreaming, check out the main episode at CandiceWu.com/daydream.

If you feel overwhelmed at any point in this experience or close to overwhelm, just open your eyes if they're closed, look around your space and just center yourself into the here and now. You can give yourself some soothing touch to any part of your body that would feel supported if you touched it or make contact or do something that helps you feel your own safety. If you're in need of that there is an episode that gives you many different ways to come back into grounding and presence at CandiceWu.com/overwhelm.

For some people, daydreaming is not quite a comfortable experience, and if that's you, you may want a little more healing support before allowing yourself this kind of open free space, but it also may be something that really nourishes you. So, it's just a matter of seeing what works for you and what support you, what feels right. So, let's jump into this experience if you are ready, and let's bring in the mystery, the aliveliness, the messiness, juiciness, playfulness, and curiosity of our dream space.

Whatever you're doing, just take a couple of breaths and feel your body, you can give it touch or just sense from the inside out, drawing your attention inward. With the next few breaths, let go of everything including work, school, outer world relationships, daily to do's, and draw your energy and attention inward into your body, being aware of your breathing and any sensation that's happening inside. Whatever you're sitting or lying on, let your body be as comfortable as it wants to be and feel whatever is underneath you, supporting you, and imagine that your body is melding in with that support and being held.

Feel the weight of your body and turn on the witnessing part of you that can just watch everything happened, without judgment, without filter, without the need to move forward or make sense, and turn off any pressure or agenda, any expectation on yourself. Release yourself into the freedom of being right here in this moment without anything to do, with nothing to accomplish, nothing that needs your immediate attention right now. Sense into any part of your body that feels safe or grounded or even neutral and feel those spaces.

If it's challenging to feel into safety or neutral feeling, imagine that you could feel safe or okay right now. Imagine what it would feel like if you felt safe, and notice what begins to happen inside.

Feel this container of the body that supports you and catching a daydream or a night dream or notices a feeling, a thought, a sensation, a movement or an image and turn on all of your sensing capacities.

If you're not aware of what your sensing capacities are or even if you are aware, allow yourself to be open to whatever you could perceive and sense in this moment, and with each breath, let your body deepen into the weight of your body, continuing to notice whatever there is to notice without expectation of anything in particular.

And as you deepen into this presence, let your curiosity and playful wellness come to the forefront, the sense of mystery, revealing inner life and soul, what may be unexpected or unimagined, unplanned for, have space here and be open to letting whatever is here, be here, even if it's nothing, and whatever happens release any pressure or need to make any logical sense of anything, and feel free to follow anything that catches your curiosity. Follow what's being shown to you, any whisper, make quiet sense or intuition or knowing. Let yourself be in the daydream space. Don't worry about what's coming to or remembering anything, just be, observe and witness.

Now, feel free to imagine that you are traveling on a rainbow, traveling and traveling to wherever you need to go right now or wherever calls you, not needing to know exactly where that is, but just letting yourself travel.

Release any need to make sense or to make something happen and let herself deepen into this space of daydreaming, of witnessing and observing anything that's happening, letting your imagination be free and brief, letting things from the underworld or unconscious bubble up to the top of what's in the dark, come into light.

Whatever is happening, continue to happen. Allow yourself to flow with whatever is happening as long as you feel safe and that your body can contain what's happening.

Now, I'll give a little bit of quiet time and space as you deepen into your dream space. After two minutes, I will draw you in to close and come back to the present moment together or you can pause the experiential at that time and extend your daydream. So, here's a bit of quiet time as you deepen into however, your spirit, your body, your inner wisdom, want to use this space and want to be in this daydream.

Now, slowly begin to be aware of your surroundings, be in to be aware of your breath. Wherever your mind or your awareness or consciousness has gone, call yourself back to your body right now. Magnetize all of your energy back to the core of your being, right into your body, here.

Feel free to touch your body or start to stretch our move, and take a moment to honor this time that you've given yourself, to do nothing, to have space for daydreaming without an agenda to the best of your ability today, to give some room for your soul and your spirit to breathe, and for the mystery of life to be alive through yourself. The couple more breaths just honoring what came through, anything you noticed or felt or sensed. Notice how your body feels in this moment, as we close, and we'll close this daydream session with love and gratitude.

If you'd like to continue on into the depth of your daydreaming, feel free to stop the experiential. Set a timer if you need a boundary of time or just let yourself be in this space of openness and curiosity and play, just witnessing whatever happens for as long as you'd like to. And if you're closing here today, begin to notice even more your surroundings, opening your eyes if they were closed, and take a little time to transition back into the flow of your day, and notice what might be different for you, now, as you step into the next breath, the next moment and feel free to bring any of the dreams you have harvested with you as you travel through the day.

It's wonderful to have you join me today, and I hope your dream time was lovely, and if difficult or challenging, emotions or experiences came up, be gentle with yourself. Get support if you need from the podcast or from friends, from therapists, coaches or healers. Support yourself in any way you need, and if creative and fun ideas emerge, see what might happen if you let those land a little further into your awareness, and I'm delighted to see where that goes for you. I'd be happy to hear.

So, as we close today, wishing you plenty more moments and spaces of daydreaming and just letting yourself have that as this is the way that your soul wants to speak to you, and the soul of the universe speaks through you and to you, and to give some time to honor that.

Thanks so much for joining today, and see you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

In the words of our guest today, Roxanne Partridge, to all y’all soul working women befriending your shadows, liberating clustered golden eggs, unearthing buried vessels of vitality, lubricating cutthroats with song, cleansing bones of patriarchy, rewiring your birthright to love into the light of your eyes and the fiber of your being, and rebirthing yourself with your blood, I see you.

Candice Wu 0:27

Roxanne works with menstruality, sexuality, empowerment, and embodiment from the depths up and out.

Candice Wu 0:38

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 1:13

Hey, it’s wonderful to have you here today. It is the first month of December 2019. Wow, we are headed into the depths of winter for some places in the world and how fitting because we’re talking a lot about the darkness and depths within ourselves here in this episode with Roxanne Partridge. She is the founder of Embody Period, which has many meanings, which you’ll hear about in this episode.

Candice Wu 1:47

I have a couple of announcements before we jump into everything, first, this episode is the 100th episode of the Embody Podcast. 100, that means it’s the hundredth episode but that doesn’t include the experiential and meditations that are held under as an umbrella of the main episodes. So the main episodes are up to 100, so that is a big accomplishment for this podcast. And for me, it’s been just wonderful doing this podcast and coming up with ideas, sharing, and putting my voice out there in this way. I thank you so much for all of you who have in some way fueled this podcast to continue forward and to have the life and love that it does. All of you listening, all of you sharing the podcast with someone, a friend or client who may benefit just remembering it and tuning in once in a while or if you are a consistent listener, and if you have supported the podcast in any way with monetary donations, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. And you are all here. I invite you all to celebrate with me the hundredth episode.

Candice Wu 3:14

I have another piece to share but this one is of a different tone. I want to share that Silver, the horse that I connected with at Silver Horse Retreat with Sarah Fancy, my mentor for Horse Constellations, Silver has passed away. If you’ve been following my podcast, you might have already heard about Silver and how he, the second morning I was there on retreat with Sarah and the horses, that he went down, he was lying down and he couldn’t get up because his leg was stuck in a part of the barrier, the fence and she had to pull him out and he like huffed and puffed and finally got on his legs. It was crouching down and then bounced off the railing, and then he was fine. And she was worried at that time that he was getting old and maybe it was going to pass soon but he lived on for another, think, six to eight months after that up until just last week.

Candice Wu 4:18

In another podcast, I’ve shared about my meditations with him and Horse Constellation experiences with him. I’ll link those in the show notes if you want to hear about my experiences and take this time to honor Silver with me. There are three main episodes that highlight my experiences with Silver or stories about him through Sarah and those are at CandiceWu.com/dancingwithhorses or CandiceWu.com/horseconstellations, or CandiceWu.com/sarafancy.

Candice Wu 4:54

And right now I’d like to take this moment to honor Silver, to thank him for his love and presence, connection, and all of the lives and souls and hearts that he’s touched, including mine. He lived, I believe 35 long years of life, and outlived many other horses, according to Sarah, and I am just so blessed that he was on Earth at a time that I got to meet him and share the time together.

Candice Wu 5:27

I will never forget the time I was trying to bring him up to this smaller arena and there was a little trail, a rocky trail that went upward to get to this space and I had taken the wrong way up and he was telling me “No” because he refused to go up it. And at some point, he gave in. I was really patient, but he gave in and said, Okay, let’s do this and sure enough, it was the wrong way and it was this disaster of going uphill. And so I ended up just going back down, of course the right way and at that point, he did not want to go back up and so I chose to listen and we walked together back towards his normal space and we just stayed outside of it. But we stood there and meditated for about 35 minutes just standing there, neither of us even made any moves and we had this beautiful meditation experience, standing in presence together. Even though there was hay on the ground, he wasn’t bothered or interested, he was just with me. We were together and it was magical.

Candice Wu 6:48

Thank you, Silver and I’m sending you my blessings on your journey and may you be in peace and love.

Candice Wu 6:59

Before we jump into the episode, it’s also fitting that the Ally with Death experiential, which is now an audio experience is out there, it is alive despite the name of death. But it is perfectly fitting for the cycles of life and death that we speak too, here in this episode, the cycle of your period, the cycle of your moon cycle, that’s your personal moon cycle and the collective moon cycles, the cycle of life and death that reflect itself through the seasonal shifts, and here, getting into the underbellies of winter.

Candice Wu 7:40

This guided audio experience is beautiful because it features music, hand pan music by artist Larry Saint Germain, who tailored the music to this specific experience to stir and shake up the blood, the stagnancy, the life force in you, anything that needs to die or be let go of what wants to be seen through you, through your soul, through your Spirit, through your body, your mind, and what wants to die off so that there can be more space for life itself, for being, for your vital core essence and the luminosity of yourself that wants to shine through on this next step of your life.

Candice Wu 8:28

And here we are, a month away from 2020 where we’re stepping into another decade of life, well, for some. So, here when we embrace death, that natural cycle of what wants to end and what needs to be looked at inside of us gets it space, gets it’s tending to and attention and love, where it fertilizes the soil for what’s coming up in your life and for beauty to be created in what’s coming, in what’s going to be revealed, all set to music that will support you in embodying this shift and transmitting the energies within yourself so that you can fully, with full-body, move forward into what is coming up for you in purposeful, meaningful experience.

Candice Wu 9:20

A shout out too, also Chris Spiegl, who produced and edited that experiential and spent his artistic attention to crafting the sounds and my voice to go together in a way that stimulates and invokes, conjures up what wants to come forward. You can find this experiential at CandiceWu.com/death and if you jump on now or soon, there’s a sale there for you, it is great as a gift to yourself or as a gift to clients, friends, family, people around you that might benefit from it as well. Again, that’s at CandiceWu.com/death.

Candice Wu 10:05

So this episode was super fun and there’s an added element of surprise here in this episode, where you’ll find out something about me and about Roxanne that connects us. It’s a very binding force between us of resonance.

Candice Wu 10:20

Roxanne Partridge is known for inspiring and guiding others into embodying their unique sustainable fullness. Women, menstruators, and individuals that seek a safe and healing and inclusive space to explore menstruality, sexuality, and embodied identity are empowered through her in-depth and creative approach. She just radiates juicy, soulful play and depth, and I absolutely love talking with her. She’s a healer, scholar, activist and has lectured and facilitated workshops in various locations as well as through her private practice and she’s also an advocate for equal rights to imagination, for images of female embodied experience.

Candice Wu 11:16

She’s informed by feminist post union liberational, archetypal, and eco psychological theory and practices and attends to the nuances of experience in the context of daily life, cultural and familial backgrounds, manifestations of the unconscious, such as dreams. She received her clinical hypnotherapy certification from the Santa Barbara Institute of hypnotherapy and trained with the revolutionary sex therapist, Gina Ogden, in her medicine wheel method of relational sexuality, and received her Ph.D. in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in California. Her background in holistic therapies and the arts form a creative container for deep and catalytic work.

Candice Wu 12:08

So, you’re in for a treat here. Feel free to grab a candle and a cup of tea or something that just makes you feel in your own aliveness or makes you feel in some sense of beauty, and enjoy.

Candice Wu 12:31

So, Roxanne, we’re here together. Are you there? Okay.

Roxanne Partridge 12:39

Hi. I’m here.

Candice Wu 12:43

You’re there. We both have our candles burning. I’ve got a cup of tea, and my salt light on, salt lamp on. And it’s just so delightful to be here with you today.

Roxanne Partridge 12:56

Same here.

Candice Wu 13:00

I just took a look at your Instagram and I just love looking at your Instagram like the juicy images and luscious words that you write and just feel so much from your soul and your gut and your being, that these words feel like they always in someplace in me and live in and awaken more of me and you, just your work inspires and guides people to bring forward they’re natural and wild and Goddess self and their sexual essence and who they are. I can’t wait to talk to you about this.

Roxanne Partridge 13:50

I love that that’s your experience, looking at my Instagram account. One thing I love about that platform is that it is so image-forward, you know, and having such wonderful access to art and a way for me, it feels like a way of, kind of watering the imagination for what’s possible, you know?

Candice Wu 14:21

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 14:22

To imagine like, you’re saying like a to give representation, excuse me, to parts of ourselves that we may not even fully know but sense. And you know what I mean like, to, to find an image that maybe is surprising or strange but somehow compelling and resonates with some experience, whether it’s like, you know, an experience of cyclicity an experience of like, a sexual sort of sense of identity and having it be reflected back. Because I feel like there can be such I mean, within patriarchy, right? Imagination, embodied imagination for women is often kind of stuck in a corner behind a door that says something like, you know, for reproduction only or crazy, or —

Candice Wu 15:33

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 15:33

You know, it’s just a social construct or something, you know.

Candice Wu 15:38

Right.

Roxanne Partridge 15:39

And how to, like, give it some more space and, you know, wander around and how it wants to speak. And like you said, the kind of messiness of that.

Candice Wu 15:51

Yeah, you know, there’s such a, like a cleaned-up version through patriarchy that you, I often find myself like breaking down in my mind around like, how we even like, the spaces and words were using. How we even let all of that imagination just go full out. In a way, I don’t think I’m describing this well, but I’m just thinking of like, nature, like, being out in nature and breaking down the wall of where we think that good work is or where we think we can do things and experience it in. I don’t even know if I’m making any sense to myself, but that’s what came up. And let’s just shift back to your work of menstrual sexual empowered embodiment and the depth up and out is what — ahm — These are your words and I love to hear from you how you see your work and what you do.

Roxanne Partridge 17:02

Yeah, thank you.

Roxanne Partridge 17:07

Yeah, from the depths, up and out. Some of what that means to me is well, from the depths it’s like the depths of psyche, the depths of soul, the depths of our body, is the kind of underworldly experiences that are of our unconscious, of our dream world at night when we’re sleeping, the parts of ourselves that may not have a lot of representation in our day to day lives and ways of creatively like inviting and befriending and welcoming those parts of ourselves that are in the depths, and getting to know who they are, who’s here? What do they need? What’s their story? And what happens as they begin to meet the waking life versions of ourselves. And I sometimes refer to this as this kind of like inner social justice work of getting to know —

Candice Wu 18:32

Yes, that makes so much sense.

Roxanne Partridge 18:34

You know, like, really befriending the marginalized parts of our psyche. And so that’s kind of what the depths means for me and what it’s like to come up and out of the depths, to rise up from the underworld, from the darkness, and find footing on the topsoil and be integrated into our day to day life and how that can change the landscape of things.

Roxanne Partridge 19:03

And in my experience for myself and also with the women I work with, usually what this begins to look like is a way greater experience of aliveness and like a real, full sense of direction that’s grounded in like, kind of our psychic roots, if you will.

Candice Wu 19:32

That’s beautiful.

Candice Wu 19:40

Your words here, about your paradigm of seeing where you see troublesome, emotional and behavioral symptoms, suffering, questions of identity instead of seeing it that way, you’re seeing that as an invitation into a deeper and wider understanding of your personal purpose, potential healing, transformation and embodied autonomy.

Candice Wu 20:09

I love these words and something that happened for us right before we started recording makes us all click because I was like, did I like, that sounds like something I want to try it. Would you like to share what you just —

Roxanne Partridge 20:28

Oh yes. So, you know, Candice, when I began to look at your work and listen to your podcasts and read your Instagram posts and the words on your website, I was like, so familiar and when we first arrange to talk and we scheduled a time, you know, I discovered we have, you and I have, like, the same exact birthday, and that we were both born the same year, on the spring equinox.

Candice Wu 21:11

It just blows my mind. I mean, I’ve met people with the same birthday before but not someone like you.

Roxanne Partridge 21:21

Oh my god! It was just, I mean, like I said, it’s so uncanny to me, like the modalities that you’ve been drawn to, the way the ideas that you synthesize, your emphasis as well as the embodiment and embodying your nature. And for me, my version of that is Embody Period with a dot at the end to have a little menstrual pun there, but it’s also like, yeah, embodiment full stop, you know, like —

Candice Wu 21:53

Yes.

Roxanne Partridge 21:54

That’s what this is all about. Yeah, you know, and that emergent kind of energy that is, especially in this part of the world, where we have four seasons of like, you know, coming out of winter and coming up, you know, and that kind of Persephone-Demeter type of story of emerging from the underworld and so towards life and new beginnings and restoration and all of that, your work speaks to that, feels so resonant to what is, you know, the ground of what I do as well and it’s just incredible to have this kind of day that we share together, be recognized, you know.

Candice Wu 22:51

It absolutely is. I’m just like, I’m still a little in awe about it and it’s so touching. It’s so cool to meet you. I mean, this isn’t the first time but to discover this together and to really see the resonance in your work and who you are. It’s amazing. Just amazing. Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 23:21

It was so cool. I haven’t met that many people with the same, I’ve met people like the day before or after. You know, and just to feel that, like, shared, I don’t know what it feels like for you. But for me it just, it feels like just part of the fiber of my being, you know, to like this energy that starts to stir as soon as we enter the month of March. It’s just like, bigger than me.

Candice Wu 23:50

Yeah, well, and I just had my astrology read. I have someone I work with every couple of months just to check in and see what’s going on in the planetary shifts and I didn’t, maybe like, ten years ago, eight years ago, I didn’t really believe in astrology very much or just didn’t have a connection and so much more than ever, it makes sense to me. And is so much just clicks with what’s already happening with what my astrologer says and how I already see that happening in my life. And so, when you shared this with me, it just, it brought all that up, this sense of how well orchestrated everything is in this universe and us being born on the same day within six hours apart. We have, you know, two different ways of expression and yet so much similarity and I know I have a moon in Gemini, so that must mean you have a moon in Gemini.

Candice Wu 25:00

You know, for those of you who know what that means, makes sense to why we’re here in this way, in our lives, I think.

Roxanne Partridge 25:09

Yeah. So sweet. Thanks for finding me.

Candice Wu 25:17

Maybe you found me in some way because it felt like, it felt, yeah —

Roxanne Partridge 25:23

Yeah.

Candice Wu 25:23

Both ends. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Candice Wu 25:27

Well, so that really brings me to this question of how did you get to this place on your journey today and what you do and who you are.

Roxanne Partridge 25:41

Yeah. Oh, so many ways to answer.

Candice Wu 25:46

I know it’s a giant question. That’s just not fair. Is it?

Roxanne Partridge 25:51

No, it’s okay. Let me feel into that.

Roxanne Partridge 26:00

It truly feels like a calling that has been sounding within me for as long as I can remember and what I like in that calling, being, mean and kind of fine-tuning it over the years, but it always was being in a space with women and listening to stories. And from a really early age, you know, I’m talking about elementary school years, women of all different ages would tell me their stories and I would hold it, I would sit in that space and yeah, at times, it was definitely a lot for seven years old or something till —

Candice Wu 26:58

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 26:59

But there was also a part of me that was like, Yeah, like I’m ready for this. And there’s always this kind of, I grew up with a lot of esoteric and mystical conversation around the dinner table largely held by my uncles on my father’s side of the family and some family friends. My mom has a best friend who was a midwife and she would come and stay at her house sometimes when she had a birth nearby and I would just stay at the kitchen table with them for hours and hours and listen to her stories of being at birth and her stories of her worldview of like, kind of why we’re here and the soulfulness and purposefulness of our life journey. And it all just kind of made sense to me.

Roxanne Partridge 28:04

I have always been drawn to poetry and art and soul work and the animated world. So in that way it was oh, there was a groundwork. I think that was just kind of there and I’ve definitely done a lot of different things at different points in my life and I’ve traveled a lot and I’ve wandered and when I entered into the field of depth psychology, I think that’s when everything kind of began to take the shape that things are in now.

Roxanne Partridge 28:54

When I found the field of Depth Psychology, I really felt like this kind of homecoming, I was like, okay, like this is the language that articulates what I just kind of know to be possible like this is a way that embraces my own experience, embraces what I felt was calling at me behind like the eyes and the stories of women and a lot of that like, coming from archetypal psychology and like union, psychological framework, and liberation psychology is this idea of a pluralistic psyche and that we contain like a multitude of selves within and a kind of mythopoetics of soul in personifying our different parts of ourselves, you know, like that in our social justice work I mentioned earlier and how healing and liberating it is to acknowledge that there is soul-making happening and let’s say premenstrual experience, which I suppose you know, and I say that since menstruality is an emphasis of my work and I guess another way that brought me here is being witness to really difficult menstrual experience growing up and also being witness to male or patriarchal like, reduction of a woman to her menstruality and the way that menstrual experience is so often reduced to hormones. You know, the female —

Candice Wu 31:20

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 31:21

Hysterical nature, like these types of things. And, like always knowing like, that’s just, that’s not it. Like, that’s not the full story and recognizing now like, there’s so much research that supports us that you know, these things don’t happen. Our menstrual selves don’t exist in a vacuum and that our psyche, you know that there’s, I’m going to pause right here if that’s okay.

Candice Wu 32:04

I don’t think so. I think you’re talking about the juicy stuff, you know. But yeah, you shared a lot. And yeah, let’s just take a pause together.

Roxanne Partridge 32:14

Yeah.

Candice Wu 32:23

Are you interested in sharing what that experience of being witness to a painful menstrual experience was like for you?

Roxanne Partridge 32:34

Yeah. It’s funny when I began writing my dissertation, which is largely on this idea of menstrual imagination, and I was examining what my own transference was to the topic. I had this kind of hand to forehead moment where I was like, Oh, right. You know, I mean, I thought like initially, the topic of my research shifted from embodied sexuality and this kind of relationship between sexuality and ecopsychology and our relationship to the earth and it shifted literally overnight to menstruality, on a night that I was painfully bleeding and decided to have a conversation with my uterus. And that was the turning point. But as I, you know, and when I addressed my uterus and all this pain and asked it, you know, just as I would a dream image like, Who are you? What’s here? What’s going on? What do you need? What I met was this kind of mourners, like, someone who was in mourning and had been in mourning for a very long time. And they were mourning, this image was mourning the loss of meaning. And I sat with that and I was like, I don’t know what this means, but I just need to sit next to this mourner as best as I can. And I had already started a dissertation proposal on a whole different topic and I canned it and I was like, I don’t know what this is. This is exciting. This feels necessary and hard and this is what I’m going to do.

Candice Wu 34:54

Yeah.

Candice Wu 34:57

Thank goodness.

Roxanne Partridge 34:58

Yeah. And as I started to sit with that further and be like, Okay, what do I already, what’s already here? That was the hand to forehead moment of like, oh, like, I grew up with my father pathologizing my mother and her moods, her unhappiness, essentially, you know, anything she did or say that he didn’t like.

Roxanne Partridge 35:31

He would throw under the umbrella of PMDD, premenstrual dysphoric disorder. Mind you. My father is not a psychologist or a psychiatrist —

Candice Wu 35:44

Like, wait a minute. Why is a DSM language there?

Roxanne Partridge 35:52

Yeah and this was like before the age of Google too, so I don’t know where or how he picked up this term.

Candice Wu 36:02

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 36:05

And, but he found it. And I remember one time being a little kid and my parents had argued that my mom had, like, gotten a car and drove off to like, blow off steam, get some air. I was so upset. And he said, you know, Roxanne, one day, I’ll tell you like, what this is all about, like, one day, I’ll let you in kind of on this secret. And I really held on to that. I was like, ah, like, there’s a reason for all of this. You know, there’s a reason why they fight. And I held on to it and he’s like when you get older, I’ll tell you and so years passed and I remember this and I go up to him like dad, you know, remember when you said XYZ, like what, what was like, what’s the secret? And he started laughing. He’s like, Oh, it’s just that, you know, she’s getting her period.

Candice Wu 37:04

Oh, what was your reaction?

Roxanne Partridge 37:11

Oh, I was so pissed. And I don’t know, probably about 14, 15 maybe when he told me this. And I had my period, I got my period when I was nine. So I just felt my anger in that moment, which I didn’t even really fully expressed to him because I didn’t really feel like there was a point but, it was just the silencing of what I saw of my mother’s experience. And all of her different needs that weren’t being met, her unresolved traumas like the context of her life basically, and how that was showing up in their arguments, and whether or not this was at all timed with her cycle, I don’t know. And she doesn’t know, she, as many women, didn’t pay attention to her cyclicity and, you know, didn’t know what phase she was in from another which is, you know, a very usual situation. But the story of it, you know of, oh, mom’s upset because she is hormonal, because she’s premenstrual, because since menstruation has been thought of like, the marker of womanhood. It’s because she’s a woman. And It just felt so binding to me. And —

Candice Wu 39:06

Absolutely.

Roxanne Partridge 39:08

Yeah. So that was very much a part of the day to day life of growing up and really seeing just the limited space for representation to what my mom was experiencing and just how there wasn’t any kind of befriending or curiosity or acceptance or conversation or relating going on to the different parts of herself that wanted to be met.

Candice Wu 39:45

And how different it would be if the secret that your dad wanted to share was like your mom is going through this magical time. This, like, every month, and maybe I don’t get it. But it’s like, alive and there’s life-giving quality there and who knows what’s happening in this magical beautiful way? That would have been a whole different story.

Roxanne Partridge 40:17

Whole different story, yeah, absolutely.

Candice Wu 40:21

Wow.

Roxanne Partridge 40:22

And so, that, I know, attending to that and understand what this was kind of this menstrual backdrop.

Candice Wu 40:36

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 40:37

You know, and realizing too, like, you know, it definitely exists in my family and I think it is very alive in our culture of, you know, if a woman has a strong feeling or thought or opinion, you know, how the cycle or cyclicity is like, weaponized to silence or dismiss or devalue.

Candice Wu 41:10

Yeah, it’s rampant.

Roxanne Partridge 41:14

And so, of what it’s like to make space for a completely different approach like you’re suggesting, you know, like, that magic, a whole different way of welcoming in the cycle. And so like, that’s part of like, the personal motivation for me again, knowing that, like, of the personal experience of my mom, and then just knowing how historically this is such a common story, of really making space to listen and get to know who shows up at different phases of the cycle, all phases. And, one thing that I lead my clients through is getting to know their various menstrual selves and the premenstrual self as she may show up in different ways every cycle and how sometimes she can be this kind of dark informant as I like to say, you know? Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 42:39

Her message may be raw.

Candice Wu 42:42

Yes.

Roxanne Partridge 42:42

It may be screaming. And, what it’s like not to judge her or reduce her to hormones but to really be curious about her.

Candice Wu 42:58

I think that is so important, you know, even women that, and myself, I’ve done it with that I’ve worked with and just here, you know, in my friendship circles or other arenas in psychology then there is this dismissing of what might happen, what messages we’re getting, what we’re saying, what we’re bothered by, we’re alive by, when we’re on our period. And it does get reduced to, Oh, are you on your cycle? And then it’s like, full stop period there in not a good way, in a silencing way.

Roxanne Partridge 43:44

Yes.

Candice Wu 43:45

Not the kind that like claims that and says, yeah. But yes, tell me more about who you see in your different phases of the cycle, or who your clients see.

Roxanne Partridge 44:01

Yeah. You know oftentimes as we get to know if it’s a moody menstrual self that comes through that oftentimes she’s a tremendous advocate for what like, the woman really wants or needs at that point in her life.

Candice Wu 44:24

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 44:25

And really uncompromising about it.

Candice Wu 44:28

I completely experienced that and I began to listen more on like, certain parts of my cycle because of that very raw, as you said, like, on a bash itself that screams what she knows she wants.

Roxanne Partridge 44:49

Yeah, and how it there’s this kind of thinning of the valve that happens.

Candice Wu 44:54

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 44:54

At that phase, you know, and in the body, premenstrually like, we heat up our body temperature is higher than at any other point like after ovulation. And I kind of think about this as this internal pressure cooker for our stuff, and, you know, whatever our, you know, kind of, ovulatory or post bleeding in our springtime selves who feel a little bit lighter, very focused, a little bit more maybe extroverted or go-getting and clear. You know, they move through the world in a different way, they have their gifts, they have their own style of being and the menstrual self kind of from an archetypal perspective, her style of being and what she has to offer is different and it can show up as like a desire to kind of clear, discern, get rid of things, relationships, jobs, people, you know really ground into like, Okay, this is what really works, you know, it’s kind of like an inner editor in a way.

Candice Wu 46:21

Yes.

Roxanne Partridge 46:22

And I can kind of like really there is such a resource. I mean at each phase of the cycle and I’m emphasizing the month the premenstrual on the menstrual because they’re the ones that usually get the worst rap you know that those marginalized parts of our psyche can really show up and they want attention. And you know what it’s like to befriend these marginalized parts of the psyche again, rather than silence them or just think okay, that’s like a negative mindset that I need to get rid of. But I’m just being curious like, okay, like, what is, who’s here? What does she need? What does she get? What’s important to her? And what does she get to experience when she receives what she truly needs? And typically, there’s a real softening that happens when the menstrual self gets what she needs.

Candice Wu 47:34

Yeah, I experience in a very spontaneous, quick way, like a deep breath and relief, which usually tells me like, that’s really what I need to do. And what you’re saying makes so much sense because during the menstrual cycle, we’re shedding, we’re letting something come off of us and sever from us and die. And it just is so in alignment, if that dark moody part of us, and maybe it’s not so dark and moody for some people, but that part of us that just knows exactly what needs to die and let go and it can be, at least for me a good wake up.

Roxanne Partridge 48:29

Yeah, there’s this wonderful like, death and rebirth that is in potential every cycle I feel and you know, I know some women who love to bleed and love the sensuality of the premenstrual and menstrual time, have liked the way that their body feels, the way that they want to respond to food and you know the way that they want to dress or just their whole central experience shifts and for some, it’s been like a question of like, a couple of clients I have like, really feel, really sexual, really gorgeous, really powerful when they bleed. That’s like this relief like you’re saying this, like, letting go and really being in themselves. And then the invitation being okay and how does this cycle through to the next phase?

Roxanne Partridge 49:37

You know we’re like, of how to carry that kind of gift of like, renewal and an integrated, it’s like if you think about maybe this, I think this might be a helpful analogy like if you go through, like a retreat weekend or deep ritual or initiation or something or a vision quest and it’s amazing and you have all these insights and all of these openings, and it’s like, yes. And what does this look like in the rest of my life? How do we bring this in?

Candice Wu 50:20

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 50:22

And that’s one thing that like, I’m really like, the idea of like, the sacred space, like, space is the main, I feel like it’s a big topic, space.

Candice Wu 50:35

Space for ourselves, space for discernment, you know, space to bleed, space —

Roxanne Partridge 50:47

Taking up space, exactly, occupying space, having yourself represented in cultural space, space and relationships, womb space, universe inside our bodies —

Candice Wu 51:09

That kind of space, outer space, and inner space.

Roxanne Partridge 51:14

Yeah, like all of those spaces. Ah, it’s something that I am thinking about every day and —

Candice Wu 51:23

We’re creating poetry here. Let’s just shift gears altogether.

Roxanne Partridge 51:31

Yeah.

Candice Wu 51:33

I got only next time.

Roxanne Partridge 51:36

But it’s like, you know the need for like, yeah the navigating, how to navigate all these different spaces and what wants to be integrated and what is, you know, what just wants to be its own space, you know, it’s like, to ground this is like you know, the space to just, to discern like, Okay, what am I carrying that isn’t mine, like, what have I inherited from my family, from culture, from, you know, different perspectives that I grew up with about what it is to be a woman, a person with a female anatomy, what it is to menstruate, have children, not have children, like, all these things.

Candice Wu 52:33

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 52:34

You know, to have this space to discern that and to really connect with what feels authentic and to like cultivate a fuller dynamic sense of self and not get caught into a single role. Because even if that role is true and meaningful, usually there are other roles that also want to be a part of life.

Candice Wu 53:02

The multiplicity.

Roxanne Partridge 53:03

Yeah. Right, and how to like, how to navigate the path. And so often, women will, in my experience, they’ll find a sense of spaciousness that feels really good or safe when it’s like in solitude and then it feels like well, being in a relationship or having a different kind of job may like, you know, or just like, it feels really vulnerable, the space, you know, and I’ve definitely experienced this myself like I’ve had, you know, there’s a big part of me that’s like a total lone wolf.

Candice Wu 53:53

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 53:54

And how to bring a sense of connection to my own inner multiplicity, my changing nature, my cyclicity all the different things and parts of myself that make me, how to bring that into my life and, you know, be in relationships or navigate different spaces or whatever. And it’s this kind of, I feel like we’re in this moment or this is all being very much explored.

Candice Wu 54:37

Yeah, very much. We have a lot more language for this and more connection and collaboration around it in bringing each other forward in support.

Candice Wu 54:55

So, with this, Roxanne, I know you also work with dreams a lot, and I’m wondering if there is a dream or dream fragment that has been striking you lately, or been alive with you?

Roxanne Partridge 55:22

Yeah, I’m recalling a dream. I wish I had my journal at hand. I’ve been dreaming so much lately.

Candice Wu 55:41

Have you? Wow!

Candice Wu 55:44

Yeah. Do you want to get it or just what feels right here?

Roxanne Partridge 55:48

It’s not close enough. Thank you.

Candice Wu 55:56

Take your time.

Roxanne Partridge 55:58

Yeah, there’s one in particular that I’m trying to draw up right now. It’s going to cooperate —

Candice Wu 56:04

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 56:05

Wants to show —

Candice Wu 56:06

Yes.

Candice Wu 56:16

It does have its own life, doesn’t it? Autonomy in a way. Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 56:30

Oh, I’ll go with the dream I had this morning.

Roxanne Partridge 56:34

So this morning I dreamt of coastal mountains in California that are not on fire and being in these mountains and having this wonderful view of the ocean. And there are these kinds of in the dream the language was mountain title tide pools. These like, crevices in the mountains that were once tide pools and they were filled with flowers and the California poppy, that orange wonderful poppy flower wasn’t blue. And it was really beautiful and kind of have a surreal quality and it’s this familiar kind of landscape where I’ve spent a good number of years living in California and that landscape is really dear to me. You know.

Roxanne Partridge 57:45

And I am thinking about the dream now and I had it this morning before our conversation today and I’ve been thinking about this topic of space. You know, where the Land of California has really offered me a lot of space. And I would say through being with and on the land out there when I was really kind of going deep and I did you know my graduate studies out there. It was through a kind of dreaming and thinking and wrestling with the land that I was able to find greater inner space.

Roxanne Partridge 57:48

And it’s been a few years since I’ve been to California and it was in the dream where I’m looking into these mountain top tide pools of blue poppy flowers and it felt like a blue color like, it changed from orange to blue and it was this kind of this, like, there was this sort of feeling tone of sadness and nostalgia.

Roxanne Partridge 59:17

And in the dream, I found myself saying a lot of things like, well, this is where I used to back when I was here I did this, all this kind of past tense stuff. And, I love recognizing that like, yes, like, this actual place opened up this inner space within me and I think there are, I know there are times when I long for that landscape to hold space for me. And I also know that well, you know, I’m sure I feel great if I went back to visit, that there’s something about like, the practice of space within myself, you know, no longer needs to or can or wants to be held by that particular landscape, if that makes sense, you know.

Roxanne Partridge 1:00:44

Feeling into it again, like, just taking it as a dream that came forward on the day of our talk, and embodiment and embodying our nature, embodying ourselves, period, of you know, it’s kind of like this remembrance, you know, of like, there is inner space, you know, and like, yeah, this actual place held back for you. And you’re like, you know, I’m just kind of pointing my attention towards what’s holding it for me now. You know, what are the ways of practicing and enacting and living space and all these different ways that we’re talking about right and like taking up space and holding space.

Candice Wu 1:01:46

There’s so much that’s breathing about what you’re saying and it almost made me think of this actual place, being more physical marker for a birth of your inner space, like, a home away and yet there’s this part of you that once, maybe a different embodiment of that or separation from physical, actual place, but taking that with you in a way. Those are my words but yeah, that’s just what it made me think of.

Roxanne Partridge 1:02:30

Yeah, you know and I think that’s part of where I find my own daily sense of aliveness is in these very mundane, small moments, of grounding into where I am in the Hudson Valley, and the present really. I don’t know how else to say it.

Candice Wu 1:03:15

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 1:03:15

You know, and of remembering that space is here.

Candice Wu 1:03:25

Yeah, and wherever you are.

Candice Wu 1:03:32

Thank you for sharing that.

Candice Wu 1:03:37

And I’m very excited to share with everyone, your meditation on rewilding your sexual ecology and that’ll be coming up here and link to your episode as well. Do you want to say anything about that?

Roxanne Partridge 1:03:55

Yeah, I’d love to. I mean, we’ve been talking a lot about menstrual selves. Another piece here is our sexual selves. And likewise, you know how knowing the different figures of our sexual essence can bring us home to our kind of native, wild, inner sexual landscape.

Roxanne Partridge 1:04:26

And so this offering of rewilding your sexual ecology is an invitation to journey into your inner native sexual landscape and taking multiple levels of life force, you know, Kundalini energy, arousal, desire, joy, where you feel aliveness and to see who comes through. Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 1:04:58

I’ve invited women to explore, you know, where they feel most centrally alive and the images that sometimes come through have oftentimes even nothing to do with a bedroom, you know, or a partner even, it’s like being barefoot and singing in their kitchen.

Candice Wu 1:05:02

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 1:05:18

It’s just like, you know, where you feel like your body just feels like, expansive. And, you know, it’s an invitation to really kind of locate that and you know, having this ecological amplification of reintroducing that wild, native sexual archetype essence species into the landscape of your life, you know, and how to have it take up space and how to have, you know, imagine it forward and to experiment in introducing reintroducing your native, wild sexual essence into your life, you know, from the day to day to your sexual pleasure, you know, everywhere.

Candice Wu 1:06:14

Everywhere. Yes. It’s really lovely. So I invite everyone to check that out. It’s some other words I wrote down where rivers and vital energy and I really liked that.

Candice Wu 1:06:32

Thank you for offering that and would you like to say anything about your hypnotherapy, the free downloads you have or the workshops that you offer in New York, and retreats, you also have one on one sessions and a million things that you’re offering that are just gorgeous, magical, and look so meaningful.

Roxanne Partridge 1:06:59

Thank you. Yeah, you can check out several free downloads of hypnotherapy practices that run 20, 30 minutes long. There’s one called Remembering Womb, which is a wonderful way to drop into your womb space with some really nurturing energy. So I always recommend that as a way to kind of befriend womb space and kind of return to yourself. I think it’s a great way to ground and there are several others there too, that you can explore and check out.

Roxanne Partridge 1:07:43

I have monthly women’s councils called Body Storm, and we’re going on a brief winter hibernation after this month but we’ll be coming back in the spring and those take the form of a talking circle that have verbal and movement visioning involved here in Hudson, New York.

Roxanne Partridge 1:08:13

And then, there’s Flame Retrieval, which is a retreat coming up in April. It’s a weekend retreat held here in Hudson. And really ends up body, soul, spirit, heart, mind, kind of initiation into tending your inner flame and retrieving your inner flame if it feels lost or low. And whether that, you know, be showing itself through creative blocks or shut down in the body and really welcoming in wherever you are so often I hear from women like, is it okay if I bring my story here? Is it too negative? Is it too dark? Am I going to overwhelm me? Oh, is this too much?

Roxanne Partridge 1:09:14

And to all of that, I say, Welcome. Come, you know, as this shameful, you know, and there’s such a vital life force in that darkness. And so, really welcoming that not only in, yeah, definitely the Flame Retrieval retreat, but, and all of these different doorways into embodying yourself fully in your life.

Candice Wu 1:09:51

Thank you. That’s wonderful. And where can people find that?

Roxanne Partridge 1:09:55

EmbodyPeriod.com/workshops

Candice Wu 1:10:00

Thank you, Roxanne. I feel like we could talk for days and a long time, and is there anything now that’s coming up that feels vital or alive to share or to say as we close here today.

Roxanne Partridge 1:10:25

I think something that I would love to water the ears of listeners with is that soul is revealing itself to you through your embodied experience, whether it’s menstrually or sexually related or behavioral or story, to remember and to be curious about how is soul showing up through us? What is soul expressing through us and to turn towards yourself just as you’d want to turn towards a beloved, just as you’d want a beloved to turn towards you, to turn towards yourself with curiosity and openness and to invite yourself through these moments back to yourself?

Candice Wu 1:11:45

Thank you. I hear that. I hear you.

Roxanne Partridge 1:11:53

Thank you so much.

Candice Wu 1:11:54

Thank you for watering my ears.

Roxanne Partridge 1:11:57

Yeah, I wish we could talk so much more

Candice Wu 1:12:00

Wonderful.

Roxanne Partridge 1:12:01

We will. All the correlations between your work and list could go on and on.

Candice Wu 1:12:08

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Roxanne and it’s been fabulous to have you. It’s been so good to be here. Thank you.

Candice Wu 1:12:24

Wow, I was so grateful to have you, Roxanne, on the show and I learned so much and just your vibrancy calls forward so much in me that remembers myself and imagination and bringing forward my process and really embracing it. You are this validating force for embracing what is real and true and alive.

Candice Wu 1:12:58

Thank you so much and all of you out there listening, thank you for joining us. I hope this was inspiring to you as well and be sure to listen to Roxanne’s meditation on rewilding your sexual ecology, which is in connection with this episode but will come out later this week if you’re subscribed.

Candice Wu 1:13:17

If you want to go straight to their website and find it right now you can find it at CandiceWu.com/roxanne.

Candice Wu 1:13:26

Before we go and end with a couple of reverberations of Roxanne’s work, I want to invite you to connect with me on my newsletter that comes out once or twice a month at CandiceWu.com/embody, where you can receive updates about where I am in the world and what’s happening with the horses or receive self — notes and updates about the podcast and be sure to check out Roxanne’s work at embodyperiod.com.

Candice Wu 1:13:55

So I want to echo her words: How is soul showing up through this? What of soul is showing through my experience? And also to ask you, what is your story? What is the backdrop of your menstrual story?

Candice Wu 1:14:17

Thanks so much for joining us today on the Embody podcast and see you next time.

Candice Wu 0:00

This experiential with Roxanne Partridge is a beautiful invitation to rewild your sexual self.

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.

Welcome, and it’s wonderful to have you here. I’m so excited to introduce Roxanne Partridge to you here. She has her full podcast at CandiceWu.com/roxanne where we talk all about befriending the many parts of ourselves that come through the menstrual and premenstrual cycle, where we explore the invitations of what life shows us, where life shows us about the soul, how to be curious and connect with the menstrual backdrop of your life, feeling alive and in tune with the darkness and the depth of who we are, to bring our own magic to the surface, all of that is just wonderfully enlivened through conversation with Roxanne so be sure to check that out. And now, without further ado, is Roxanne.

Roxanne Partridge 1:53

Welcome to rewilding your sexual ecology, Dr. Roxanne Partridge of Embody Period and I’ve created this hypnotherapy experience for you to deepen into your inner sexual wilderness landscape, gently moving beyond the layers of conditioning we have all received around sexuality and meeting authentic pleasure, the deep joy of your embodied essence.

Please go ahead and lie down if you haven’t done so already. Get as comfortable as possible, making sure your body feels totally supported from head to toe. Pull a blanket over you if you’d like to feel cozy, as well as to help you deepen into your body, with that extra weight of a blanket.

Settle in, settle into the space, placing your hands over your pelvis.

Good, and now taking several deep breaths.

This is your time, so relax into it. Letting your breath deep and down under the palms of your hands and notice what it’s like to deepen your breath down beneath your belly and to bring it all the way down into your pelvis. Letting your pelvis receive your deep, steady, relaxed breathing right now and allowing your breath and your attention, your awareness to nourish the space between your fingers, the space beneath your palm, bringing warmth and is and relaxation here in between your hips.

And as you do this, your hips begin to relax and open, letting your legs loose, feet at ease, opening from your pelvis down and out.

Eyes closed, eyelids heavy, muscles of your face, relax. Your lips part gently as your jaw relaxes and your head becomes heavy and perhaps even droops a little, the energy of your forehead, your third eye, beginning to draw downwards and inwards.

As your attention moves down, your body relaxing, arms, elbows, back, and shoulder muscles relaxing into your core.

Good.

Feel and imagine a channel of energy now between your third eyes space and your pelvis, your root. Feel and imagine this core of energy moving from your third eye down to your pelvis.

Imagine and feel this as a river. A river that is tidal and can move in both directions. And right now, we’re moving from your third eye down into your pelvis. So feel and see this channel of energy run through your core, connecting your breath from one place to the other.

As we begin to take a journey down this river of energy, beginning here in your third eye, this place of inner visioning, feeling and sensing yourself afloat on a raft or a wonderful tube drifting down this easeful, relaxing river of your energy. Feeling yourself move clearly. This water runs with ease. It runs fresh and clear, gently drifting down through your head and neck, visualizing and sensing yourself as you do this moving down this river and opening up your inner visioning to the landscape.

Beginning to perceive and sense what’s around you on all sides. Noticing the shorelines and what’s here. Perhaps there are trees, fields or mountains, notice what’s here in your own, in our bioregion, as you drift down through your heart space and your solar plexus space and down into your belly, and down beyond into space beneath your palm, the inner place of your sexual ecology coming to stillness here.

Then finding a place for yourself to rest whether it be upon the shore, on a rock, the sand, the grass, bringing yourself to a place of stillness here in the base of your sacks and breathing deeply.

Put the organs and tissues of your sexual ecology. A vital place of your fertile creativity, power, essence, and joy as you land here in this domain. Noticing the air, the light, what grows here.

You meet the homeplace of an inner vital figure of your joy, of your wild, free, sexual essence and she shows herself to you now. A Mary Jane from the landscape, perhaps she comes from the river itself. Perhaps she comes out of the trees or on the horizon and she makes her way towards you and notice how she shows her mood, her way of moving. Perhaps she’s dancing. Perhaps she’s moving slow and steady, arms open like a goddess. Perhaps she kind of just floats in a completely enchanting way over the landscape.

Notice her energy and her style right now and she comes to you and takes your hands and pulls you lovingly into her orb of energy, introducing you to her way of being. And in this moment, her way of being becomes your way of being and together you amplify and expand this essential, vital energy throughout your entire being, throughout this entire landscape and body place, your whole pelvis illuminated and energized and nurtured.

As the two of you become one in this life energy, feel yourself here needing this source of your wild sexual essence, knowing that this lives organically, natively within you and now that you know that this is what lives here, you can bring this energy forward, upriver, traveling with it throughout your entire being, introducing this vital energy that is wild and native to your sexuality, to your sensuality, to your creative essence, introducing, reintroducing this native essence to the fullness of your being, welcoming its power into your solar plexus, welcoming this life force into your heart, feeling your heart expand with its presence of your wildly authentic pleasure, feeling as you continue to move up the river, feeling your sexual essence meet your throat and open your throat and hear and feel the words, the language of this native sexual energy.

What did she say? What is she sing to the world? And feeling you rise and travel further up and out into your third eye, opening your third eye, with her presence that is yours and noticing how she sees the world and your place in it and how you body your wildness forward.

Imagining right now and seeing, knowing it to be true, how you move forward in the world but the wildness of your sexual ecology moving through you, allowing yourself to feel completely energized by this throughout your entire body, feeling it in your toes, your hands, feeling it in the sides of your face, perhaps now, even smiling a little, breathing and expanding into this life force energy and noticing how the landscape of your waking life completely ships in small and significant ways now that this organic, wild, native source of your sexuality has been realized.

Deep breath.

Feeling into the palms your hands, turning the palms of your hands now, upwards and outwards, expanding your arms, opening your arms into a great big stretch of wings, bringing them above your head, stretching out your legs and feet, feeling your pelvis warm, hips open, chest open, back, maybe even arching a little, let your head fall back, mouth open in total pleasure. Expand it and your wild sexual ecology.

Thank you for the vital rewilding work. Body for wild throughout the rest of your day and the rest of your life.

Candice Wu 20:20

As you come out of this experience with Roxanne, take your own time to come back to your surroundings. Support yourself in any way you need to. This is all about you and what you need right now to support yourself, to support your sexual being and as Roxanne invites us to, I invite you also to see how this experience can be brought forward into your life. Thanks so much for taking the time today.