Candice Wu 0:00
This episode is about how to sort out your inner dialogue and explore the many parts of yourself so you can feel clarity, heal the wounded parts of you, know what part of yourself is talking or engaged in various moments, lead yourself with intention, and love and embrace all of yourself.

Candice Wu 0:21
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 0:35
My name is Candice Wu and I'm a holistic healing facilitator, intuitive coach, and artist sharing my personal journey of vulnerability, offering meditations, and guided healing support, and having co-creative conversations with healers and wellness practitioners from all over the world.

Candice Wu 0:57
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 speaking about parts work today is actually really connected with dream work because, in a dream, it's as if every part of the dream is you. And we can see the different parts of the dream as parts of yourself revealing to you, the parts of yourself.

Candice Wu 1:30
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 dream when you wake up.

Candice Wu 1:47
This is the first class in a series of many that will dive into the juicy parts of dream work 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 Kennedy School.com/dreamclass1, the number one, right now this 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.

Candice Wu 2:32
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 2:53
So hello everyone, welcome back. It's great to have you here today. It is December 24th for many of you. It's a holiday and perhaps you're with family or friends, perhaps you're off on your own. Whatever is happening with you, I know that holidays can bring up a lot inside. Right now I'm in Germany, spending some time with my partner's family and him. And it is interesting, I haven't been home to Michigan with my family for the holiday time in maybe three or four years, it's been some time. I've spent a lot of my Christmas times with my family in Hong Kong, especially since my grandma was near the end of her life. And last year she passed away. So it's a bit of a shift for me here to be in Germany.

Candice Wu 3:42
How have you all been feeling as the holidays are here as the new year starts to come around the corner? For me, I've been having some interesting experiences on the surface emotionally. I'm just very grounded and calm, almost blank, almost boring. And then I'll go to sleep and have these marvelous dreams.

Candice Wu 4:09
And just my dream life is like wild. And it feels like a lot of the inner stuff that I've been working on for the last 12 years, maybe 10 years at least is just clearing out and making its way through and my waking life is just like calm as can be. However, having said that, this morning I did wake up with a bit of an experience, which is not uncommon in the last couple of weeks, where I'll just wake up with this vague feeling of fear.

Candice Wu 4:43
And if I take myself a little bit seriously, which what I mean is just to slow down with myself and notice what that is, and not just dismiss it not just pretend it's not happening. Well, if I do, and sometimes I do, it just continuous much longer. But if I slow down with it, then I can find out a lot more about myself and heal something that's trying to make its way to the surface.

Candice Wu 5:12
And that's really what I experienced often when we are having emotions that are coming up that don't seem to totally feel in proportion to what's going on in our current life, or what's happening as we know it consciously. It seems that something in us is making its way to the top so we can heal and release it. It is if we have even more capacity in ourselves to look at something that wants to heal, something that wants to show us another piece of ourselves.

Candice Wu 5:48
So moving right into the parts work and dialoguing with the many parts of ourselves, I want to share with you what I experienced this morning. This is like fresh off the press. Not that my life is like broadcast-worthy. But apparently, it is now on this show. But I wanted to share this as an example of how you might use parts of work if you're not already, or to just give you some more to boost what you're already doing.

Candice Wu 6:38
When I woke up this morning, I felt this feeling of a little bit of dread, a bit of fear. And I thought okay, well I can easily dismiss this. But let me just feel into it. So as I felt into it and felt the emotion of it, felt into the sensation in my body and just asked out loud, who's talking? Who is feeling this fear in me? And what I did, I just let my imagination open up, let my awareness open, my heart open. And what showed up was a teenage part of me, was the between the ages of 14 and actually 21. So a little bit older than teenage as well.

Candice Wu 7:07
And I just sat with this part of me and wondered what is scary, and it just immediately clicked and I think the many years of me doing work with parts of myself and younger parts, the inner child, all of that really helped me to be able to just feel into what's going on pretty quickly. So if you're not there don't feel bad, it just takes some time. This all didn't really quite make sense for me for many years. I think, in the beginning when I was working with an EMDR therapist, and doing parts work for a couple of years, it still felt hard to navigate. I didn't really know what I was doing or where to go next. But now it feels like second nature. It's how I take care of myself. That's how I love myself and relate to these many different parts of me, past, present, and future.

Candice Wu 8:04
So I'm talking to my teenage self and witnessing how she did life so alone, in a lot of ways. I had many friends growing up. I had good friends in high school and college. But as for the big decisions in life, I felt like I was doing it all by myself.

Candice Wu 8:23
My parents are immigrants. And so they didn't really have that much knowledge to navigate the American worlds of universities and career choices. My dad was an engineer, and he had gone to U of M, University of Michigan. He was very busy at his work and he just didn't really know how to mentor me in these spaces.

Candice Wu 8:48
So I made a lot of career and life choices on my own. And, well, looking back, there were a few mentors here and there. But I really needed someone close to me. So the feeling was that it was quite scary to do this all by myself. And as I looked at all the decisions I made, I felt quite proud of myself, I felt like I made those decisions and I did Okay. So that was very healing, feeling into that side of things, what I had done right, and what I've stepped into. Even though I didn't have what I needed. And looking back, I remember not feeling fear at all. I just did it. I just plowed through. And that's the kind of plowing through overriding, moving forward, that is part of my survival mode, where I just keep going and I don't feel the fear because it's actually not safe to feel the fear.

Candice Wu 9:51
So it makes a lot of sense to me that I'm feeling that fear right now. Because in the past, I couldn't feel it. And where in other situations prior to having done so much healing work, I might have identified with that fear and just applied it to my now situation and kind of gotten in a slump of depression, which is very reminiscent of the past.

Candice Wu 10:17
This experience of just pinpointing who's talking, and giving that part of myself what it needs. This part of me needed to feel like she wasn't alone anymore. So I let her know that I was always going to be there for her, and that she's no longer alone. And I, being an older, wiser, more resourced part of myself, the future self, the future, Candice. And that felt quite comforting to this part of me as I imagined and connected with my inner teenager. And she just needed to have that update and to be reminded of all the way that she did it right. And to feel through the fear and the aloneness. And to be reminded that that's not exactly the way it is now.

Candice Wu 11:14
So the fear passed and a lot of grief move through, it's almost all the way through. But at this point, it doesn't require much tending to, it's just making its way through my body. And it can feel things in my body kind of recalibrating. There was a big shift of sensation in my body, heat, warmth. And now there's just a more open space, I feel clearer. I feel like my breath is deeper again. And there are just some different movements happening inside, energetically.

Candice Wu 12:01
So what I'm describing to you is the process of connecting with some vague fear I had asking myself who is this tuning into the part of me that needs something. Giving myself what this part needs and building that relationship even further with my younger self. And then the physical and energetic emotional changes that happen as a part of the healing process. And coming out on that other side feeling even more grounded in myself. And knowing myself even more. It's quite a gift to be able to honor a younger part of myself, that didn't get what she needed. And to know that pain that I experienced, in a fuller and deeper way, just gives me so much more depth to myself now.

Candice Wu 12:50
So let's dive into parts work and explore this together.

Candice Wu 12:54
Parts work comes from and connects with as well as overlaps with many different traditions. It can be used in so many different ways. There's IFS which is internal family systems, which is looking at who is this internal inner family that is engaging with one another? What are the many different parts of me that create this inside family? That is my psyche.

Candice Wu 13:24
There's also voice dialogue which has resonated with me very much and it's similar to IFS, where we're looking at what are the parts of me? Which part of me is speaking or leading the way? And, how do I become aware of these parts and their dynamics so that I'm so aware that I can choose and be intentional about which part of me is leading?

Candice Wu 13:51
Other people call it parts work very basically, or soul-work and working with pieces of the soul. Shamanism works with that in particular. And whatever it is called, the method of working with it might be a little bit different, or the different clinician or healer working with it has a different spin on it. And the way that I like to work with it is to bring in the body, of course, the embodiment piece of how is it to experience this part of yourself? Whether you're stepping into that one part, or you're communicating with that one part? What's the felt sense? How are the emotions? What's happening, what wants to happen in the body? How is the body holding this experience? And how can we bring healing, what's needed? So it's really about opening the heart and the body, and allowing the healing to come from a heart space, from a place of love and basic emotional needs, which is what I find a lot of our inner wounds need.

Candice Wu 14:57
We have many different parts of ourselves that are talking and coming into play at different times. These are subpersonalities, part of our subconscious, some are more in our awareness, and other parts. And it's not that we have dissociative identity disorder, or some people in the past might have called it multiple personality. It doesn't signify that you have a disorder or a pathology, if you are noticing the many parts of you. It's actually an incredible thing that can help you find clarity about yourself, and also bring healing to the parts of you that may have gotten stuck in time, or stuck in a certain place of development, or soul parts that have gotten stuck in different lives.

Candice Wu 15:44
It's quite a resource to notice that my inner critic is really strong. And it just comes online when whenever I'm approaching a new situation. Or if I'm going to have a fun experience, my inner critic tells me that I shouldn't, and how I'm such a bad person for even wanting that. So it's helpful for us to notice what ways we're talking to ourselves. And very specifically, what part of ourselves is doing that talking. Because then, as we get to know that one part of us, that voice that comes in every time this or that happens, then we can bring some healing to that one part. Because it's certainly not all of you to be able to notice the complexities of who we are, the parts of ourselves that are coming in, the parts of ourselves that get hidden or don't get a chance to voice or speak up or stand up.

Candice Wu 16:44
The many different emotions that we may have at one time. All of that shows the complexity and the beauty of us as human and also is incredibly empowering. Because you're not just one thing at one time, you're many things. And it gives that awareness so that you can choose who you want to be, and heal the parts of you and embrace more of yourself, you can understand that your inner critic was some part of you that had to learn how to be really harsh, because someone else on the outside was harsh, or it was protecting you in a certain way. And so instead of just trying to kill that voice inside, trying to change the words that you say to yourself, which is sometimes helpful. If it's not, what do you do, and this is one solution. If it's not helpful to just change the words, then let's look at why those words are so strongly there.

Candice Wu 17:43
So when we have parts of ourselves that are extremely rigid or strongly there, and very, I don't know, perhaps causing sabotage or pain inside, tension, then that might be a clue to us that there's been some wounding that this part of us, that who we are inside wants us to look at so we can heal.

Candice Wu 18:11
So if you've seen the movie Inside Out, that's sort of a primer to the inner world. I feel that our inner world is much more complex than just defining it by different emotions. In Inside Out, there was a girl and you could see her inner parts working. And those inner parts included sadness, joy, anger, etc. And what I find is more of that these different parts of ourselves, all have a variety of emotions, some may feel more anxious than others, or we may track down and get to know a certain part of ourselves by the fact that the fear comes up.

Candice Wu 18:56
And so what is a part of us that has that fear. So it's not just defined by emotions to delineate our inner parts. The personality of each of our parts can elicit a variety of emotions. So think about a situation where you seem to get triggered in the same way or the same thing repeats itself and you get reactive, and somehow, you deal with it the same way or you reacted the same way. That part of you may be a certain aspect of your inner self. And if we explore what that part of you desires, what the agenda of this part of you is, what the wounds are, how they're feeling right now, what they need, we can really open up a whole world of a part of you, that can be reclaimed, and embraced and healed.

Candice Wu 19:57
If it's needing healing or incorporated into your daily life, if that's empowering, or maybe another part of you can support this part of you that's hurting.

Candice Wu 20:10
So for me, one of the easiest ways to work with my inner parts is to see what age this part of me is. And first of all, is it me? Or is it someone else and energy of someone else, or the voice of someone else?

Candice Wu 20:27
If it is me, and it has a distinct age or a sense of an age, just checking to see if there's some impression of how old or young this part is, can really give a lot of information.

Candice Wu 20:39
As I was talking about my teenage self, that teenage self is extremely different from my two-year-old self, who needs a lot more regulation, support, love. And a two-year-old self developmentally is going through a completely different experience. Well, I guess that's arguable, than a teenager. But if you know anything about developmental psychology or child development, we know that two-year-olds want to assert themselves in a very strong way. They want to know Yes and No, they want to be able to speak, and move, and feel free. But also they want what they want when they want it and can feel very upset if they're not getting what they want and what they need.

Candice Wu 21:28
And so I guess that isn't very different from teenagers but it comes with a different flavor. And it comes from a different developmental place because if that two-year-old gets supported in a way that's empathetic, attuned, loving, yet clear in terms of boundaries, then my teenage self might have been way better off.

Candice Wu 21:51
So all this to say that the different inner child parts of us might have a different set of experiences, given what age we are, and what happened around that age, what life was like at that time, and what we needed and didn't get or what we experienced. And not just the challenging things, but the joyful things, what was it good things in life at each time period. Other inner parts might be past life parts, our inner critic, the part of us that just gets so mean to ourselves, as I mentioned earlier, the protector, the part of us that wants to protect us from any harm, whether that's emotional, spiritual, or physical, or dominant, or submissive parts, the wise parts of us, the inner divine or inner sage, higher self.

Candice Wu 22:45
The parts of us that are like a teacher or coach, if that's a part of you that shows up in your life. If you have a career and you have different skills that you're using that career, perhaps that's a part of yourself that comes through the leader in you. Also, there's a part of us that is our mother, or is our father or some other ancestor or friend, that we experience the energy of this person through us. And we have an aspect of ourselves that is like that person or can tune into the energy of that person, yet that aspect is part of us as well.

Candice Wu 23:26
So when we say that everyone is a mirror of ourselves, this really sheds light on how that is exactly. So if we're talking to the mother in you, specifically, or your own mother, if you close your eyes and picture your mother and talk to her, there may be an experience of how she might respond to you, talk to you, feel towards you, and how you might feel towards her. And in a lot of ways we work with family constellations in that way by visualizing. But we can also tune into our ideal parents, our ideal father, our ideal ancestry in terms of the soul of them, the love in them, or some part of a person that you'd really like to experience to support you.

Candice Wu 24:21
Sometimes when I work with a part of me, it turns out to be that it feels like it's a blob of energy, or it's some creature of some sort or an animal. So it's helpful to be completely curious and open about what a certain part of you may look like, or be like, so that you can learn more about it and see how to interact with it, how it can be best incorporated and integrated into your psyche.

Candice Wu 24:54
We can't exactly get rid of parts of us. Sometimes parts are ready to leave or release and that usually is best done without force or resistance, but in really, truly seeing what that part needs to be released. Or if it's ready to go, if there's anything it needs before it goes. So that it's a true release, and not just a pushing away of an aspect of yourself. And what I find is that when we push a part of ourselves down or away, that part can feel abandoned. And if you've ever felt abandoned in your life, it could be a repeat, instead of you experiencing the abandonment from outside, it then becomes an inner abandonment of an aspect of yourself that really wants to be seen, honored, and appreciated.

Candice Wu 25:51
And a lot of times we do abandon younger parts of ourselves that we had to put aside in order to survive, where we weren't able to feel through a certain pain or fear, or something that happened in the past, and push that part down or pushed that energy down maybe. And we're used to that. So we can still leave some of our inner parts abandoned or dismissed, were be reading them or for the plethora of ways that we were treated when we were younger. So you can see how the outer world and the inner world all of that is an iteration or repetition or fractal of the same way of being that can repeat in your life. All of it stemming to a belief set that you might have, that perhaps you came in with or picked up along the way. And these parts of ourselves usually want the best for us, when we ask them. What they desire for us, it's usually in some way for us to succeed, to be protected, to be okay, to be safe. We get down to and distill to the very basic of what the purpose of how they're behaving us.

Candice Wu 27:15
So as I said, each part of ourselves has an agenda. It has perhaps a sense of age or timeliness. It has a whole set of knowledge, perhaps even a physiology. So if we tuned into your inner critic, maybe that part is very tense.

Candice Wu 27:37
If we tune into your five-year-old self, maybe that part is very free and joyful, or perhaps it's curled up in a ball and needing a lot of attention.

Candice Wu 27:48
So the body can carry the shape of that energy if we tuned specifically to one part. So what's just so fun to do is explore the inner workings of how all of these different parts of you engage, how do they talk to one another? Different parts might communicate differently with other parts, and differently with other parts. Do some parts push another part down? Or are some parts think like teammates and work together, their partners in crime, or they really work together while they push out another part of you?

Candice Wu 28:29
Is there a part of you that protects your younger self or a part of you that chimes in when your inner critic chimes in. So a lot of times our inner critic can connect up with our achiever, the part of us that really wants to achieve a lot and do well and perhaps is driven by feeling not enough. And when that part comes online, maybe the inner critic gets a little mean about things, when things are not going right or what you're trying something for the first time or performing something, etc.

Candice Wu 29:06
Maybe the achiever also connects up with the part of you that pushes and drives you forward and does it like white knuckling it. And so perhaps those three inner critics, achiever, and pusher really become this challenging force inside and all the while the other parts of you are feeling berated and hurt and plowed over.

Candice Wu 29:33
So how is everyone inside? How is the whole team doing and who's included and who's not. And when I've experienced in myself or with my clients that every part of the system is acknowledged in some way or has its place just like in family constellations, there's a sense of peace.

Candice Wu 30:00
Everyone can be supported and utilized in a way that is helpful to the whole being. And that's similar in any team. If you think about a work team, we want everyone to feel that they're valued, supported, included, and an important part of things, no matter what their role is, whether that's down to the person cleaning the bathrooms to the head person that is the leader of the team.

Candice Wu 30:31
So our inner world is similar, we want every part of us to feel engaged in the right ways, and in the right times, and loved, and having their place.

Candice Wu 30:45
So a couple of weeks ago, I had the feeling life is so hard, like, I just woke up in the morning feeling like, I just can't do life, I just don't know. And this is not an unfamiliar feeling to me. I've worked with this feeling a lot and it's connected up with many of my younger parts. The parts of me that did have a really hard time in younger life where I had to experience a lot of things that were uncomfortable, traumatic, as well as deal with all the emotions by myself. And my main way to deal with it was to numb it out because it was way too overwhelming.

Candice Wu 31:26
But I hadn't had this feeling in a while that life is so hard. And at different times, if I'm nervous about something, it can trigger that feeling that life is so hard, but it really is just a bit of nerves around something that I'm experiencing or approaching. But, with this particular feeling, again, I felt like okay, let's just look at what is this. And as I did, it connected up with not just my younger self, but also a younger part of my grandpa.

Candice Wu 32:03
My paternal grandpa was adopted when he was around five years old. And this story that as I've heard it from one person in my family was that he was given away for money. And this is of course not talked about in my family. And so because it was probably such a painful and maybe shameful experience. Well later, I found out that my great grandmother had passed away, his mother. And that my great grandfather had probably been overwhelmed. It didn't know what to do. And perhaps didn't have enough money. I don't know what happened to my grandpa's siblings, but my grandpa was given to someone else, in exchange for money. And then eventually my great grandmother that I knew in my life, that was the adopted Great Grandma was the one that took him in.

Candice Wu 32:54
So as I opened up, the feeling of life is so hard and felt into it. I also asked myself, what's the context for this? Is this me? Is this my younger self? And partially felt like yes, and partially felt like, it's not all mine. And that's exactly right, because what came up was the energy of my grandpa, the feelings that he couldn't hold, that life is so hard, terrifying, dreadful perhaps, scary and upsetting.

Candice Wu 33:27
All of those feelings, as well as of grief and loss and pain. I don't think he could very much hold for himself, given all that happened, and how I'm holding it now. And as I imagined my grandpa, in that experience, and just felt into some compassion for what he may have experienced, it was releasing in me. And not only that my younger self didn't have to hold the pain of my grandpa, and my great grandparents, but also the repeated feelings in me that life is so hard, the same feelings that I went through when I was younger.

Candice Wu 34:09
So I want to talk briefly about how we can use parts work in relationships. It's extremely helpful, when you're triggered in an intimate relationship or a family relationship, when there's an upset between you or a conflict, it's really helpful for me, at least to be able to notice what part of me got triggered, and perhaps, open up what part of the other person got triggered. And if they can speak the same language, then even better, because it's like, oh, yeah, my six-year-old self is talking to your 15-year-old self. Hmm, don't think we're going to solve any problems here this way and no wonder we're both reactive in our specific ways. Or maybe someone's younger self, child self is talking to my child self, who turned into a parent early on, and knows how to be a mother, which is an interesting paradox being both child and mother.

Candice Wu 35:10
But that's the part that gets activated in me sometimes when I'm in relationship. If someone else is really needing someone and wanting someone to guide their way. Sometimes that part of me the younger part that wants to please them so that I can get love turns into a motherly figure, to take care of the other person, so that I can get what I need, and the other person get what they need.

Candice Wu 35:38
And so I don't really like to lead from these parts. I don't really like to be in an intimate relationship with those parts of guiding the way and interacting the most. It's not really fun to be someone's mother, when you're not. So you might take a little look at your own relationships, and where there's some conflict or where there's any place where you get activated or upset or anxious.

Candice Wu 36:09
And check out what part of you is having that response. And then, if you slow it down, even more, what part of you, or what parts of you come online afterward, lot of times a younger part of us gets activated, especially in relationship, or especially in experiences where there's authority in relationship, like a boss or supervisor. Or when we're in groups. And if our child part gets activated, then perhaps another part of us comes online to protect that part from having to be felt. So if the child part gets activated with some hurt, maybe it happens so quickly that the critic in us comes and says, nope, you can't feel that. We don't have feelings like that. You're not allowed to feel that. And maybe not quite so literally, but swoops in and does something to distract or is mean to you so that you can move forward or beats you up a little and says, you just have to plow through or whatever it is. And then maybe another part says, oh, well, maybe we don't have to be so hard on ourselves. And all these different voices start to tangle up.

Candice Wu 37:32
One easy way to spot different parts of you getting conflicted or having a conversation, is when you are making a decision that you're not so sure about, that you have some ambivalence about. And there are two sides to the story or many things to consider. And yet, one part of you really wants this and another part of you says no, I don't think so because of X, Y, and Z. And then you kind of just go back and forth in your head and it all gets mixed up and you can't really make a decision because both the pros and the cons and the pros from either side of the story seem worthy. And where do you go from here?

Candice Wu 38:16
And sometimes it's just so overwhelming that perhaps our nervous system just shuts down a bit and we get paralyzed. We don't know how to make that choice. And so maybe we don't make a choice. Or we just get stuck in that internal chatter and argument back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth. Considering what we should do. Should we do this? Should we not? We shouldn't? Yes, we should. Yes, we should know. And it just goes back and forth.

Candice Wu 38:44
We found that if you sort out those voices, well, who's the one saying that it's a good idea. And why? And we interview them a bit, get to know their full story, what that parts thoughts are, and all the reasons why they think it's a good or bad idea and hear this side out. In fact, you can even sit in two chairs or three chairs, however many parts you're sensing, and sit in one chair and talk from that part, then move to another and have a rebuttal, etc, and just duke it out. But here each part out.

Candice Wu 39:24
That's called the empty chair technique actually. And that's something that's often done in Gestalt therapy, or other psychodynamic therapies even. And, that's where parts work overlaps, we can see that many traditions are using this and a lot of different ways.

Candice Wu 39:42
Really fun thing to do if you do, set out two chairs for two different parts of you that are arguing back and forth, is that when you sit in one side, and let that side habit say, don't just talk, but allow it to come from within, allow it to come from the feeling of it, and feel the depth of what's going on in your body. Notice how the body is held. Notice if there's an emotion, or a way the body feels, or has sensation in some place. Or maybe there's tension in one area or a couple, just see what it is to be like in the body from this one part, which is how I'd like to use voice dialogue or dialoguing with a part.

Candice Wu 40:29
I often talk to that part of my clients. So I asked, can I speak to the inner protector in you? And I asked them to move to a different place in the room and however that part wants to show up, is quite interesting. Maybe they're on the ground lying down and eyes closed, which for a protector that can be a challenging way to protect someone. And maybe that person feels very vulnerable and unprotected in themselves, unsafe.

Candice Wu 41:02
I've seen a protector show up standing and hovering over another part with fists at their hips and elbows sticking out like with a strong pose. And looking down on the other part with some disgust or disdain.

Candice Wu 41:23
So we can see from our physiology, when a part shows up or when we step into a part, what the dynamic is going on inside. And it really illuminates this inner dynamic, so that you can have more awareness. And what I find is, the more awareness we have about the different parts of us and how they're interacting, the more we just acknowledge it, see it, feel it, honor it, honor where it came from, or how this pattern started and be gentle with it.

Candice Wu 42:03
The more that we have distance from it, we're able to have flexibility then because we see more. And we're not so limited by that part because we have more awareness, it's released some of its hold, its power, and grip on us. And we have new flexibility to shift into a different part of us because we see more, we see how we've been. And when that happens when that awareness happens, it just gradually loses its rigidity. And we de-identify even more or some healing happens.

Candice Wu 42:45
So the most powerful thing that's happened with some of this work is that people feel wow, I understand myself. And now I can choose with more intention, what part of myself I want to be. And I know how to take care of these other parts of me. And I don't have to depend on my parents the way I used to, I can give love to my inner child or I can heal the parts of me that have been wounded from a past relationship, even though that relationship is long and dead.

Candice Wu 43:23
So it's a beautiful thing. I love it, it's so much fun, and for especially people who want to analyze everything and want to talk everything through, this moving into a different place and speaking from that voice, or sitting and picturing and visualizing, what part is talking and connecting with that part as if it's a separate part. That has been incredibly helpful to build not only awareness, but also to help shift and heal the nervous system so that there's a new baseline of relaxation and safety inside.

Candice Wu 44:03
We can find parts of ourselves that have been hidden away, abandoned, shut down, or even killed. And so those parts, when they come back alive, can make us feel even fuller. We can find parts of ourselves that are incredibly joyful and are essential to who we are. And when those parts are shut up or abandoned, we don't feel like ourselves.

Candice Wu 44:33
We feel quite stifled or lost. We use that word a lot, he feels lost. And perhaps that's a part of you that's lost, who's lost? What part of you is lost?

Candice Wu 44:47
And as I spoke about my story with my great grandparents and my grandpa, holding the energy of my grandpa, a lot of times, it can be a part of ourselves that has felt lost or whatever feeling we're feeling. But it also can link up with someone in our ancestry whose story was never told, whose story was lost, or whose life was lost.

Candice Wu 45:13
And it can even connect up with past life. If that's a part of your understanding or resonates with you, then it might be helpful to feel into, is this part of a past life? Or is it part of this life? What part of me is this?

Candice Wu 45:29
So a fun activity that you can do with yourself is to just take any scenario that you notice you have been activated or reactive. And to start to slow it down, picture the whole conversation again, or the interaction and just see what part of me is turned on there, what part of me was reacting. And you can even play it all out again and notice how it feels in your body and start to ask with gentleness and with the sort of listening heart space rather than an analyzing space. We don't want to keep it all in the head and the mind. We want to bring it down to an experiential place where it involves the whole body is that's where the transformation happens. That's where the depth of emotion can be felt and released. And that's where things can really shift inside.

Candice Wu 46:32
So asking yourself out of a scenario, who was that or what parts were that, and you can name them anything you want to. I use certain names during this podcast, and IFS and voice dialogue. There are different titles for more common parts like our inner critic or protector, the inner child, our wounded child, the magical child, our dominant part.

Candice Wu 47:04
You might use archetypes like “warrior”. You might have your own name for parts. I love that because it gives you ownership of exactly what that part wants to be called, if it wants to be called anything. And recognizing that inner part of you is very unique to you. It is like your own fingerprint. So nobody else can tell you exactly what that part is. But sometimes it is quite helpful to hear someone else say, well, that part sounds like it's your inner critic.

Candice Wu 47:40
And when we're so used to just all these different voices in our mind, these thoughts happening, it can feel really cluttered. And if someone else that gets to know you or comes in with this awareness of parts, they can say, oh, that part sounds like a different part. It doesn't have the same thing flavor or tone as that anxious part of you that was just speaking. This part's crying, what part is that? That sounds different from the part that has a stern voice.

Candice Wu 48:13
And then you can take that in and go oh, right, that feels like a totally different part. And another fun thing you can do with this is you can map out your inner self.

Candice Wu 48:25
I love taking post-it notes and just taking one part of yourself to a post-it note. So writing down like my five-year-old self, because a lot happened when I was five. And that part seems to be really sucking time or wants a lot of support, or shows up a lot. And also carries my joys. Okay, but one post-it note is my five-year-old self, and then another as the artist in me, and just certain name parts of yourself that seem to come into your life.

Candice Wu 49:01
And then name parts of yourself that you want to lead more often, energies that you'd like to hold and be in your life, like your higher self or your inner wisdom, your inner being, the essence of you, a dancer in you, the lover, the romantic. What parts of you do you want to show up more often, and write those down in the post-it too.

Candice Wu 49:35
And as you lay them out on like a giant piece of paper or a wall, I love using the wall, or even a desk. Then you can start to just intuitively place them how they relate to each other. As they said maybe the inner critic and the achiever part of you are comrades and they just work together all the time. They're inseparable. And they're super far away from the younger self, or maybe the younger so hides behind them.

Candice Wu 50:05
And so where are all these parts, if you could give them a visual location, map them out, dimensionally even like if there are layers, or if they're just in different parts of this space. Give them a visual so that you can start to see the inner workings of yourself and to go further than that.

Candice Wu 50:26
If you start to ask yourself, oh, what would the coach say to my younger self? Or, what if my younger self stood over here instead, next to that wise, inner sage. And how would that feel?

Candice Wu 50:43
Though getting some flexibility in the system so that you can use all the resources you have, so that you can use the many parts of you to support other parts of you that need support. This is how we look at or how we understand the idea that we have everything within us that we need to heal. That we have all the power within us. It's just about accessing all these parts of us at the right time.

Candice Wu 51:11
You might ask yourself, what part of me do I want to show up in my relationship with my partner or with my boss, or with my mother. You might even map out the parts of you that are your grandmother, like the grandmother in me. And maybe that relates to your specific grandmother because your grandmother reminds you of a pure love or generosity or something.

Candice Wu 51:42
And that can be an aspect of yourself that you start to cultivate. So we have that inner reflection of the outer people in our life that can give us a feeling sense and energy of a part of ourselves. You can also design new parts, if you didn't have a certain type of parent that you really needed when you were younger, maybe you're a sensitive person and you needed someone who was completely attuned and present to that. And so you can design an ideal parent, and create this inner parent that can love your younger self. Or maybe that is your adult self already.

Candice Wu 52:27
So we can play with this in so many ways. And as I said, it's really helpful to do this with somebody that can support you in understanding the different parts of you can ask curious questions and give you new curiosity and new awareness. And also bring in gentleness, tenderness, and love to the mix so that you can begin to love all the parts of you.

Candice Wu 52:54
Since there's so much you can do with this, in the following days, I'm going to share to really experiential, one with dialoguing with a part of yourself by sensing into them visualizing that part, talking with that part, and learning more about that part, that question of who's talking and what is their agenda, what do they need. So perhaps we can bring healing to this part, or tap into some wisdom that's already waiting for you to unleash and unlock. And that would be a dialoguing from who you are now sensing into imagining another part of you.

Candice Wu 53:35
And then the second one is going to be fun, and really interesting, because I'm going to dialogue with a part of you. So I'll ask you in this experience to step into a different part of you, and I'll talk to you as if we're right here together. But of course, we're not. And so you'll just be responding from your side of things when you listen. And I'll just invite you to experience this part. Talk to me from this part, and then step back into your whole self.

Candice Wu 54:18
So if you've done some family constellations work with me or through the podcast, this might already sound quite familiar. And it is, it's not really all that different. Because we have access to the energy and the knowledge of different parts of ourselves as well as different parts of others. It is one in the same. It is our intuitive sense and what comes through us and allowing what's already there to be seen, felt, and understood.

Candice Wu 54:49
And I also hope to be doing a couple more of these experiences around parts. So look out for those in the months to come. Starting out with these two.

Candice Wu 55:01
So we're at the end here, it's cold and snowy here where I am in Germany, and I'm just ready to cuddle up into a blanket and have some tea, do a little bit of arrest and hibernate. That's kind of what I've been wanting to do as they said a lot of crazy dreams are happening and so much as coming to the surface to heal. Even though I did say in the beginning of the podcast that not much is happening on the surface. Well, I think it was just turning and now it's really coming through to the surface.

Candice Wu 55:39
Because this morning, I woke up to finish the second half of this podcast. And a lot of grief was moving through from what I started to tell you about yesterday at the beginning of this podcast.

Candice Wu 55:51
So as we conclude this podcast, let's just take a moment together and feel your being feel your presence here. Along with me, just take a couple of breaths. Notice where you are. You don't often take the time to do that, to just notice our surroundings and to take pleasure in what we're seeing around us.

Candice Wu 56:20
We're to close your eyes and feel inward. And just notice your own body here and notice your breath. That you are alive right now, the most simple thing. And just thank yourself for listening in today and developing yourself, having fun with yourself, healing, loving yourself.

Candice Wu 56:56
And as we go today, just want to thank you for being here. It's really lovely to hear from you when you email me and share with me what's going on for you. I love hearing from people I already know and connect with or who are my clients. And also I love hearing from new people. It's just delightful to hear or to receive a message from someone I don't even know who says I've been listening to your podcast and found these things helpful or wasn't so sure about what you said there, what do you mean. Feel free to do that, feel free to share or ask questions and to give me any ideas about what you want to hear about coming up.

Candice Wu 57:41
We have just a short time until the new year next week. I'll be talking about some of my end of the year thoughts and how I conclude the year out, cycle of life and death, aligning with death. I love that. So happy holidays if you're celebrating and stay warm out there if it's cold where you are.

Candice Wu 58:08
And if you're listening in and you want to stay connected with me to listen to more podcasts, healing, experiential, or other offerings that I have, check out my website at CandiceWu.com/Embody where you can sign up for the newsletter that will inform you of all these things. You can also connect in on Facebook. Search Embody Community and you'll find us. That's where I post 5 to 10-minute videos around self-love, tips, and meditations.

Candice Wu 58:41
And as I mentioned the dream course earlier, check that out on Skillshare. You can find it at CandiceWu.com/dreamclass1, the number one.

Candice Wu 58:53
Thanks again and see you all next week on the Embody Podcast.

Introduction

This episode is a healing experiential around dialoguing with a part of yourself. You can find the full podcast around Parts work at CandiceWu.com/parts.

So this week, we’ve been talking about tuning into the many parts of you for empowerment, healing, tapping into your wisdom, and to help you make decisions and find clarity in life.

If you have had inner chatter, where you just can’t quite make a decision, and you go back and forth, or you have certain triggers that keep on happening, and they repeat itself, it might be helpful to check out who’s talking, what part of me is engaged here, or reacting.

This healing experiential will help you do that.

So I’m not going to talk too much here, you can listen to the full podcast around this at CandiceWu.com/parts. It’s around Parts work, voice dialogue, connecting with the parts of you.

So here, we’re just going to jump in pretty quickly and dialogue with one part of yourself.

Let’s Jump In!

The most ideal way to do this is to do it in a private and safe space. If you like to do things on the train or the subway as you go, in transit, that’s fine, too, it might just be a little distracting, unless you’re really good at tuning everything else out.

So wherever you are, find a comfortable place, feel free to get some water, get a blanket or cozy pillow and you can sit or lie down whatever is most comfortable and safe for you.

I invite you to close your eyes, if that feels comfortable for you or look down.

Just take a moment to release your attention from the outside world. Let go of any attention on work, stressors, life, relationships, anything that’s weighing on you. And also just release your attention on the future, any worries, your laundry list of to do’s.

Letting go and turning all of that attention towards yourself, with love, with gentleness, with compassion. And if you don’t know those emotions or energies, if they’re not easy, just imagine what it would feel like to be able to feel love towards yourself, gentleness, compassion.

Invite a Part Of You Forward

Now we’re going to invite one part of yourself to come forward so that you can connect with that part and have a conversation just like you would talk with a friend.

To see inside of your heart, what part of you you’d like to talk to, connect with?

You might sense into what part of you you’d like to cultivate, grow into or lead the way. For example, your inner wisdom, your higher self, your adult self, the artist in you, the enthusiast, the wise inner sage, whatever part of you that.

This part of you may or may not have a name, but just sensing into the part of you that you want to step into, the empowered part.

The other thing you can do is connect with a part of you that you’d like to understand more, maybe that’s a part of you that reacts in conversation with your mother or in a relationship that you have.

Maybe it’s a part of you that keeps on chiming in when you have to make certain decisions. Sometimes you don’t know who’s talking exactly, but you have this sense of, “Oh, the part of me that gets really angry when ”x“ happens.” Or, the part of me that tells me I shouldn’t follow my gut. The part of me that starts crying when someone gives me a certain look.

So you don’t have to pinpoint the name of the part of you but just the part of you that has any little clue that leads to this part.

So the clues might be a sensation that you feel, like, maybe your fists tighten up. It might be an emotion that happens, or words that you say, words in your mind, thoughts. So take a moment to connect up with any words, sensations, an energy or a feeling sense of a part of you that you’d like to understand or connect with here.

If you need more time, feel free to stop the podcast here and take some moments to look at what part of you you’re curious about, what parts of you become activated, or what parts of you do you feel you want to empower. And if you’re ready, let’s continue on.

Who Is this Part? Getting To Know This Part

And as you close your eyes or look down, sort of feel into that clue towards the part of you that you’d like to dialogue with here and call forth this part of you that has this feeling or words with a part of you that you can name, that you’d like to talk with.

If you’re not sure about who this part is, you might ask, “Who’s talking? What are you or who are you?”

And just connect with this part, see this part and acknowledge just exactly how this part shows up.

Notice if it looks like a part of you or someone else, a creature, color, shape, figure, be open to however this part of you shows up and is.

And as you look upon this part of you, ask it, “What’s your story? What would you like me to know right now?”

And listen without any filter, without any judgment, from a space of the heart, not where you’re analyzing or thinking about the response but just asking and listening. “What is your story or what would you like me to know right now?”

Just see what comes into you. What feeling? Image? Thoughts?

Usually, these are just a flash of a thought or a sense of something and it can happen pretty quickly versus the analyzing mind trying to think it through and walk it step by step.

This doesn’t really have that kind of logic, because it’s wisdom that’s trying to surface to you.

You might ask this part, “What do you desire for me? What is your wish for me?”

If this was a reactive part, or hurt part, a part of you that’s feeling something, ask them about it. “What makes you feel this way or what’s happening right now?”

And as you listen, acknowledge anything this part is sharing with you in whatever way it’s showing you and let it be free to express in all the different ways that can. You might ask this part, “When do you show up?” And listen to anything it says. “And how did you learn this way of being that you are? Where did you learn or who did you learn from, if anyone?”

You might ask, “Is there anything you need from me right now?” And be open to anything it shares with you and if it tells you something that needs from outside of you, see if you can imagine that for this part of you or go deeper, and see if there’s something underlying that emotionally that this part of you wants to have.

“And is there anything you need to feel free or safe? And what can support you in thriving?”

Feel free to ask, “Do you have any other messages for me?”

And now also, feel free to ask anything else that you would like to know, would like support with, would like to understand, give this part of you the space to tell you exactly in their own way.

And now thank this part for showing up and surround this part with love, and release your attention on this part of you or this part and just come back to your sense of yourself, your being here and now, your body, feel your breath, just as it is right now.

Coming Back to All Of You

Start to give a little movement to your body or deepen your breath. Stretch if you’d like to and when you open the eyes or gaze upward, just do so gradually letting yourself arrive back in the space of here and now.

And as you feel yourself present here, feel that you are yourself and reflect back on the experience of this. What part were you talking with? What did you learn?

Just notice how you feel at the moment as you gaze upon this part of you that you’re talking with, where do you embody this part of yourself? How do you feel now?

And you might take some more time, or repeat the exercise to connect on another day or to give yourself more time with this part of you, see what wisdom you discover as this evolves.

And now that you’ve connected with this part of you, it’s my guess that this may continue to grow or open up for you.

If this was challenging for you or hard to do, hard to see or visualize a part of you, that’s okay.

If you practice it again, if you have that curiosity, it might become easier. Or, I recommend practicing the second experiential where I invite you to stand in a part of yourself and that can really be a game-changer because you can really feel in your body differently and hone in on just this part of you, isolate it so that you can really get to know it.

Continue to Observe

So just observe as the day goes on, and the week goes on, just what happens with this part of you, if you’re able to connect with it differently, or feel differently in the scenarios that you’re in, that this part of you can be brought forward or received back a little bit.

If it was a younger part, you may not want your younger part to lead when you’re in your career and job.

You may want some more empowered part of you or resource part of you to step in, so be gentle with yourself and curious and compassionate and just allow this to be more of the discovery for you, more play and understanding of yourself.

Perhaps it’s painful and brings up some emotions, just allow those to continue moving and if you ever need support, feel free to reach out to me. I’d be happy to work with you or give you some resources on what can support you the most.

Thanks so much for tuning in today and check out the second experiential if this was interesting for you or if you’d like a different spin on things. Take care and I’ll leave you with a little music to end.

Introduction to Voice Dialogue

We are going to have some fun today. This episode is a healing experiential, where I walk you through to dialogue with a part of yourself, where I speak with as part of you, and you can respond from your end wherever you are in the world.

So today’s healing experiential is voice dialogue. It’s going to be an exercise where I invite you to step into one single part of yourself.

I will ask questions through this guided experience and support you in discovering, understanding, and seeing a part of yourself and the dimension of this one part of you.

It’s different from the healing experiential, that we did the other day where you dialogue yourself with a part of yourself.

This is where I dialogue with a part of you. You can find the full podcast on Parts work at CandiceWu.com/parts. And also the first healing experiential is there too.

I will Dialogue with a Part of You

So we’re going to jump in and I recommend doing this in a space that’s private so you can just fully let go and tune into this.

Find a space where you’re comfortable and just let yourself be natural.

Let yourself close your eyes if you like or look down and just shake out your body, move your body, shake your arms, shake your legs, breathe deeply, release out your mouth. Just shake off the day so far.

Release anything that’s weighing on you at the moment.

And as you settle into your body, feel your belly, be aware of your hips, notice your legs, your knees, and your feet.

Bring your hands to your heart or palms together just to connect with yourself. Notice how you’re feeling at the moment, how your body is.

And as you go deeper with yourself, connect in with a part of yourself that you’d like to explore, understand, step into.

Who Would You Like To Explore?

Just like the first experiential in this series, it can be a part of you that you’d like to cultivate and find empowerment in, bring into your life, could be an ideal parent, it could be your best friend, because there are parts of your best friend you really admire.

It could be the part of you that’s the warrior or the goddess in you, could be the leader in you, the empowered part of yourself, higher self, captain, whatever it is, it doesn’t have to have a name.

Or, it could be a part of yourself that you struggle with and you’d like to understand or find healing with.

Maybe that’s a younger self. Maybe that’s your teenage self, or the part of you that gets angry with your partner, or the part of you that feel stubborn, anxious.

The part of you that has negative thoughts about yourself or criticism, or that reacts when you’re in the car and flip someone off.

Whatever part that is, just tune into the part of you you’d like to explore.

See if you’re willing to explore this part, and that part is also willing to come forward. And you might know if that’s a yes, because you feel called to it. It might feel uncomfortable, or you might get nervous but you feel like you want to. If it’s a no, it might feel like your body shutting down, you’re just not wanting this. Or, there’s a lot of restriction in you, a tightness that says, “I don’t I don’t think this is the right thing for me right now.”

Just trust yourself. You need to pause here and check-in with yourself, go ahead.

Overwhelmed?

Anytime if you feel overwhelmed, or you need to take a break, be sure to step back into your full self and say your name to yourself even, feel your body and look at your surroundings and take a break.

You can feel free to pause the podcast, you can jump back in later if you want or try again later. Or, maybe it’s not the right time for you.

Follow your own boundaries and what your body needs through this experience.

Step Into This Part

So if you’re ready to tune into this part of you and step into it, I invite you now to open your eyes if they’re closed and move to a different space in the room or wherever you’re at, and embody.

Become as if you could just become this one part of you, become this part of you. Let this part of you show up however it wants to show up, perhaps it’s lying down, standing up in a certain way, maybe it’s seated in a certain position, moving in the corner, under a blanket, however it wants to show up.

Take a moment to feel into your body here and what it’s like to be in just this part of you and even look upon your whole self from this place where you are now.

Picture your whole self where you were standing or seated before and notice what it’s like to look at your whole self from here as this one part of you.

Notice if you feel any warmth or coldness towards yourself, if there’s a connection or not. Notice how your body is.

And I’m going to talk to you as if you’re just this one part of your whole self and you can feel free to respond in your head or out loud especially if in the privacy of your own space. You can just say the words out loud and let them be heard by yourself.

You might even talk about your whole self in the third person, so that you can really feel the separation, the distinction of you, yourself, in this place. This one part of you, separate from your whole self, from the aware ego in you, the aware self.

Hello to This Part Of You

So, I will begin to dialogue with you now.

How are you doing from this place?

How do you feel?

Are there any messages you have for your whole self right now? Anything you want your whole self to know?

Why do you think your whole self wanted to connect with you today?

What gifts do you bring to yourself and your whole self?

What is it that you feed her?

What are the times that you show up the most in your whole self’s life?

What is your purpose in your whole self’s life? What are you here for?

Is there anything you need or any way that your whole self can support you?

And what do you wish for yourself? What do you truly want for your whole self?

And is there anything else you want to tell me or tell your whole self?

Closing and Gratitude

Thank you for showing up and thank you for sharing. And if there’s anything you want to tell your whole self, want you to do that, and picture yourself telling your whole self, and them hearing you.

Or if there’s anything you want, another part of you, to tell you or support you in, feel free to picture that now.

Before we transition, take another moment to feel into your body and notice your emotions. Notice what’s happening inside, where you’re drawn to be or how you’re drawn to move.

If there are any words, or any story that’s coming from your body, your emotions, your heart, feel free to share that.

Take an inner snapshot of what you feel, what it’s like to be in your body right here. Take a couple of deep breaths. Take it off if you want to and allow yourself to come back to the place where you started as your whole self.

Coming Back to Your Whole Self

And now I’m talking to you, your whole self, not just the one part of you that we talked with earlier. And as you arrive back at your whole self, state your name to yourself, say, “I am..” and say your name.

Take a moment and just touch every part of your body, from head to toe whether that’s with a light touch or firm touch, just allow your body, your nervous system to land back here, simply be felt.

Notice your surroundings. Notice your feet and look towards the part of you that we spoke with and that you spoke from. Imagine that part of you they are now. Imagine the position that your body was in there.

Notice all of what this part of you shared, all its desires, fears, needs, purpose. How they feel towards you and how you feel towards them.

And notice what it’s like to look upon this part of you now. Notice what feels different in your body and what may feel the same.

Is there any different space in your chest or different sensation in your body, an emotion you’re feeling now, an awareness or clarity you have? Are there things you’re still curious about or wondering? Are there things unresolved? New things discovered.

If there’s anything left hanging open, you can feel free to go back to this experience and repeat it or go to the first healing experiential on dialoguing with this part of you, or you can just simply look upon this part of you, picture them and ask them right now.

If there’s something that you want to know more about anything that’s left hanging, if you need to say it.

If this part of you wanted you to say something to them, maybe encourage them or share love, your love for them or forgive them, do that now and just see what it’s like to be on the other side.

Ending

And when you’re ready, just let go of it all, feel your breath again, and just simply feel the aliveness of your body, the presence of yourself here in this space that you’re at, look around you and get in touch with the things that look pleasurable around you.

Thank yourself for being here and thank the part of you that we spoke with, for showing up.

You just dialogued from a part of yourself, a part of your inner self that you either wanted to learn more about or empower yourself with or find healing in and just recognize this as very deep work.

Be gentle and curious, compassionate about whatever showing up now, and what continues to unfold for you.

If you’re wanting any support, I would encourage you to reach out to me. I’d be happy to give you referrals or to work with you personally. And I recommend that, if this is interesting to you at all to work with someone that understands parts, because it can just open up so much internally and in your life, having someone else see from the outside what’s going on and ask just the right questions or shine a light in a certain space in you can be such a sacred and empowering experience as well as healing.

Thanks for tuning in today and being willing to experience this. Again, you can listen to the full podcast at CandiceWu.com/parts.

And that’s where you’ll also find the first healing experiential which I recommend for you too. And I look forward to hearing from you if you have any reactions, thoughts, curiosities, etc.

And I’ll leave you with just a little music today to soothe your spirit and give you a chance to just unwind after doing such a deep exercise. Wishing that you feel love for yourself as you go through the day and always.

Candice Wu 0:00

This episode is all about the small, tiny little things that happen energetically and physiologically that we can look out for that tell us that the body is healing or deepening in its capacity. We’ll talk about coherence and how to attune to our bodies’ coherence and vibrate with the rightness of our being, trusting that it knows its way and following its lead. We’ll also talk about when you feel stuck, and how to support yourself in noticing any little difference that’s happening.

Candice Wu 0:37

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 1:11

This episode is sponsored by the Embodied Healing Group Call, which is a once a month group call that’s no more than four people each, where you are supported in being at ease in your own body and soul, tapping into your intuition and wisdom, working with the semantics and ancestral healing around anything you’re experiencing or challenged within your life. You can find the group call at CandiceWu.com/groupcall. The contribution that you make for the group call is put right to the podcast, the production, editing and all of the work that goes to create quality podcasts, which is a labor of love.

Candice Wu 1:52

So, funny, not so funny thing is that after I recorded this entire episode, I realized that I already did this episode. It’s Episode 74, The Potency of Tiny Movements, Subtlety, and Coherence, and I probably did that episode after the first module of Somatic Experiencing advanced level where we focused in so much about coherence, and it inspired me, but right now, what I notice is that tuning into these nuances of the really small things that are happening, create a huge ripple effect, and allow the healing to come with so much ease, allow us to feel safer, more easily with less suffering and struggle, because we’re moving with a flow, the natural flow and innate intelligence of the body.

Candice Wu 2:48

If you want to find that episode, it’s at CandiceWu.com/ep74 or /coherence, and that episode talks more about how we can find the places that we’re doing it right in our lives, where our bodies are supporting us and our well being, and how we can truly look at those things instead of overlooking what’s happening.

Candice Wu 3:13

In this episode, I list the specific physiological nervous system features that the shifts that might happen while we’re feeling into something, while we’re in any sort of healing process or if you’re in therapy, and you’re talking to your therapist. These are things you can notice to boost that process of growth, expansion, and feeling like yourself.

Candice Wu 3:41

Hello, everyone. Thanks so much for joining me today. It’s great to have you back. As always, I just got back from San Diego on Somatic Experiencing Advanced Level 2 Training. So, I am finally after three years done with the Somatic Experiencing training. This is fantastic, I still need to finish my consultation hours to officially become a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and SAP, but as many of you know, I’ve been doing this work for a long time, and even before the training, a lot of the embodied healing work was already coming to me in different avenues, different types of modalities, and this is a nice combination of all those things.

Candice Wu 4:28

In the Somatic Experiencing Advanced 2 Training, we did a lot more of touch work, which is making contact with the body and attuning to the body’s coherence, the body’s intelligence and what’s going right, and listening, being able to listen with my hands, what’s happening in the body and to support the natural healing abilities and potential of the body.

Candice Wu 4:54

So, this work I’ve been doing for quite some time and it also connects with Reiki and other kinds of, kinds of touch work, but this training offered some different aspects to nuances to add to my practice, which includes working with the joints and the different sections of the body, they call diaphragms and supporting the movement of what wants to shift in the body, to bring us to a deeper expansion and capacity. So, I love doing touch work it feels very natural to me, and I’m continuing to offer that whether that’s on a table like a massage table or seated or well in movement to my clients that are seeing me in person, so, some people do see me in Michigan, when I’m visiting Chicago or New York or other places, we can always connect up and there’s always distance touch with the online work and remote work that I’m doing with most of my clients.

Candice Wu 5:59

Lately, with the horses, I’ve been very tuned into the quality of how I can communicate with the horses, psychically, like with my mind with my attention, and so, when I’m asking my horse to walk in a direction, I see it happen in my mind and send my energy to communicate that before I gesture with any of my body, and often, if we’re in tune, my horse will already do what I’m asking before my body gestures physically. And so, I love that I get to see that. I can ask my horse to speed up and do a trot and then even speed up faster and canter or slow down or do other things. I’m still working with some of those basics, and when I was in the training, I noticed that we were also tuned into that process of placing our attention somewhere or withdrawing our attention from someone’s body before our physical body moved, and it is incredibly powerful. So, the power of our attention is real, and that’s what this whole podcast is about today.

Candice Wu 7:26

About three weeks ago now, I spoke about nervous system overwhelm. So, if you’ve been feeling tired or shut down, numb, anxious, depressed or stressed and overwhelmed, that episode might support you in shifting in the nervous system so that you can come to more safety, which allows more energy and also allows the baseline for healing.

Candice Wu 7:52

In that episode, I talked about how supporting the body to feel safer, allows the next thing to happen, allows true healing in an organic way to begin to come online, and I also give ways to work with that. And one thing that I noticed is that if we are truly attuned to the little things that come out of just the basic support for the body, then that enhances it even more. It’s like it multiplies every moment. You place your attention and awareness, with curiosity, compassion, and witness. So, what I mean is that when we’re supporting the body to feel safer, for example, I used making contact with your body, self-touch. It seems like such a basic thing, and almost silly or stupid to do that, but when we touch our body, it reminds our body of our container.

Candice Wu 8:58

Of course, a lot of other things can happen, too, like, your body might become triggered or different emotions may come up, but you might feel a little bit of a deeper breath in that moment, a spontaneous one or something shifts inside and you begin to cry, and these are signs that the body is coming to more safety, the body is shifting, and there’s healing happening, even if it begins to feel worse before it starts to feel better, but what I’ve noticed is that we’re not always aware of what those little things are, and we may not even be looking for them. And when we do that, we just bypass what’s happening. We almost understate it so much that that is a detriment to what’s going on.

Candice Wu 9:51

Of course, the body will show us again, and if we miss it again, it will try to show us again in another way so it’s okay, but if I In my own healing process, in my own deepening of my presence that when I’m aware of these little things that are happening, then it’s like, everything just moves from there so much easier, and isn’t that what we want, the ease of being in ourselves and the ease of going into challenging emotions rather than the toughness of that or the stress and pain of that.

Candice Wu 10:33

So, in this episode, I want to talk more about those things. If you want to find the podcast on overwhelm and 12 things you can do to support yourself in feeling safer and less overwhelmed, you can find that at CandiceWu.com/overwhelm, and it can be a nice preface or aftermath to this conversation today.

Candice Wu 10:58

In the mental health field, the coaching world, even the world of motivation and positivity, which I have my opinions on, there’s this thing about noticing the positive things or noticing strength or qualities of yourself and being grateful for those things, and what we know is when we place our attention there, that grows.

Candice Wu 11:23

On the other hand, we also do need to work with the uncomfortable stuff that’s trying to show itself so that our whole capacity can expand, and that allows the good things to expand, the things that feel pleasurable rather. If we’re not going to judge things as good and bad, the things that feel pleasant, but when we do speak to noticing those things, sometimes, we’re just noticing from our mind, from the logical space, from the head, and if we let the feeling and the awareness go all the way into the body and slow it down so that our nervous system and awareness can digest and integrate what’s happening, and we give ourselves that much more chance to heal and to feel at ease and ourselves, and to let the body naturally tickets course on how it needs to move through whatever it is you’re experiencing.

Candice Wu 12:30

So, how about noticing the nervous system’s responses, the body’s responses as another aspect of what we’re noticing, which we’re not always trying to do? The intelligence of the body, the whole physiological system that is made up of energy or energetic blueprint underneath that the consciousness of who we are and of all beings, that is so brilliantly intelligent that it works without us working it. In yogic practice and Ayurveda, the Vedas. They call it Buddhi.

Candice Wu 13:15

Buddhi is intellect, and it’s not the mind’s intellect. It’s not intellectualism, but it’s that intelligence that is innate and knowing of how to be and how to exist in a natural way. So, that is in us. You have that and whether or not it feels like your body knows what to do, at a very deep level, it does. There’s something that is adaptive and intelligent. There’s something coherent inside that is keeping you alive, and by just acknowledging that, and finding someplace where you can believe in that, the body begins to come into even more coherence and presence with this present moment.

Candice Wu 14:15

If you think about a little seedling coming up from the ground, a little bit of a green sprout, tiny, and if you don’t see it, you could just step right over it or maybe you walk too close to it or put your hands too close to it and the dirt just covers it up. It just gets squashed and it doesn’t get to grow, but if you see it, you actually see it instead of not see it, if you place your attention on it, then it gets to grow, it gets a chance. It gets a chance to grow a little bit taller or bigger or another little tiny leaf sprout.

Candice Wu 15:05

Our bodies are similar in that way, where if we notice a tiny thing that happens a shift, then the next thing can happen, but if we bypass that we don’t even see that it’s happening, aren’t looking for it in an open way, then we miss that small chance for it to grow even bigger, and to expand even more. What we also see in the world of family constellations is that something had to go right in the ancestry, in your lineage for you to exist.

Candice Wu 15:48

So, if you come from a family that has lots of challenging experiences, traumas, losses, pain, fighting perhaps, imbalances, there’s still something that went right for you to exist, and it’s often the force of love that compels that, and somewhere along the way, it gets tangled up and or last underneath the other symptoms that are making its way to the surface, the other emotions that want to be seen or the outcome of something when it’s farther removed from its original root context, and that we could have a very deep conversation, but for today, the point is that something had to go right for you to exist. Someone did it right, probably more than one person.

Candice Wu 16:53

And if you take that to a personal level in your life now, some things had to go right, you did something right to get yourself here in your life now, even if you’re suffering a lot or you have major stressors and challenges going on, something had to go right, and what is that? If even right now, you touch into that, what would happen if you just sat with that experience of that thing going right? Are you making that choice that worked for you or that barrage you all the way to now, even if there were things that you regret or wished would have gone differently? There’s got to be at least one thing, maybe. Let’s see. So, as you do that, feel free to notice if there are any sensations happening or if that’s accessible to you, and we’ll take this deeper in experiential this week, but just for now, touching in.

Candice Wu 18:16

So, the power of your awareness, your awareness is your inner witness, the part of you that observes and can watch what’s happening. When we’re deeply traumatized or even a little bit traumatized or when someone in our lineage has been and it’s been inherited or if we’re never taught to witness, we can be so identified with what we’re experiencing that we become it. We think we are that emotion that we’re feeling. We think we’re angry, that’s who we are, and it’s not just the thinking, it’s all of our energies kind of glommed on to that experience, and we lose the ability to track what’s going on. We lose our power of choice and freedom, and to some degree, our capacity to be in that experience is lesser and it makes it a little more overwhelming. At least in my experience, you may have a totally different experience.

Candice Wu 19:30

Our awareness is who we are. It’s the consciousness in us. It’s the consciousness of the source of things, but individualized is who we are, and that awareness that watches what’s happening, watches the thoughts and emotions and sensations and movements. That part of us, because it is connected with source, has the ability to boost our healing power just by noticing, just by placing attention and staying with. It doesn’t require anything else, but that kind of presence, the quality of being here with a little softness and curiosity or with neutrality.

Candice Wu 20:21

So, if we place our awareness with the things that begin to shift as we begin a healing experience or be in the present moment, then that amplifies and just continues on with the momentum. So, I want to talk about here now, just the small things that you can look out for small healing signs, tiny things that happen physiologically that you can notice that, means, that the body is moving in a direction of healing or of growth. Some of these may not seem like they make sense, but I always go back to the analogy of cleaning your room, but sometimes things feel worse before they get better.

Candice Wu 21:19

And so, maybe, a shift is noticing an emotion that you were numb to before, but that coming online and feeling that emotion actually means your body feel safer and able to be in that experience, and I talk more about that in the overwhelm episode that I mentioned earlier, when your body comes out of freeze state.

Candice Wu 21:47

So, let’s talk about those little tiny things that you might notice in your body shift, and if you notice it with a sense that something’s happening, this is different. “Wow!” or, “Oh, interesting!” And then the next thing can happen, and the next thing. This is also extremely helpful for the part of you, if you have a part of you that can feel stuck or feel that nothing’s changing, nothing’s happening, you’re not where you want to be, and by noticing small changes, we can start to notice and allow bigger ones.

Candice Wu 22:33

So, here’s a culminated list of some of the things that I noticed that come from somatic experiencing the practice, as well as yoga, family constellations, and other indigenous practices, and this is all just coming from different angles going to the same place.

Candice Wu 22:54

So, first, one of the biggest things that we can notice is a spontaneous organic breath. Suddenly, your body goes “ahaaa” and it happens naturally or the breath comes into a different part of your body or the breath is a little bit fuller than the last breath or feels more flowing and useful. While we can control that to some degree, we can choose a breath that goes deeper. I’m talking about the kind that happens without you choosing it, the involuntary kind, that shows the nervous system is coming into more safety right now.

Candice Wu 23:43

A second thing you might notice is a micro-movement in the body or a large movement, any shift of the physical body, your arms or legs, your shoulders, your neck, your jaw, a tiny little shift or a tiny little desire to move in a certain way, and that might lead to the body soothing itself. For example, suddenly your hand just goes to your chest, at your heart. That’s a movement or maybe your arm wants to move side to side, that something or maybe that tiny movement starts the process of a completion of a fight or flight response. I talk more about fight responses in the anger episode at CandiceWu.com/anger, and flight responses a little bit in the overwhelm episode.

Candice Wu 24:50

A shift that is healing can feel different from a management strategy, a coping strategy that you typically use to deal with what’s going on or to set something that’s going on aside or to ignore it, and we do that because it might feel a little too overwhelming to feel or we’ve been used to, just doing this habit that pushed us something else away or changes it, so you don’t have to feel it. So, check if that feeling or movement and shift is part of a strategy to manage your feelings that you know already or if it’s something new coming up.

Candice Wu 25:32

What also can come in the movement is a self-protective response. Maybe you start to notice your shoulder tense up and your elbow wanting to come up, and lift up to put your arm so it’s like a guard to your body, and this requires a slow process of sensing in or maybe even when you’re telling the story, your arm just kind of does that. And if you notice those movements, then the next thing might begin to happen.

Candice Wu 26:08

Another thing to notice that shows that healing is happening is seeing differently. If you notice yourself seeing more or more clearly, sometimes seeing something that you didn’t see before or noticing something in your periphery or noticing colors and details more vividly. Perhaps, your eye gaze is softer and more expansive and relaxed, less constricted, and all that shows that the eyes are moving from a constriction that is required when your body feels unsafe. So, if you think about a threat or something happening, that you need to look out for, your eyes become very sharp, and your vision wants to search and land right on the things that are dangerous or to find those things. And the opposite being, your pupils are open and you’re able to softly look around and take in things of pleasure. That says that your nervous system is feeling calmer and safer, more present.

Candice Wu 27:32

You might notice a settling in your body, someplace that goes “ahhhh”, and has a release or feeling of relief, lightness, expansion or spaciousness, maybe a pleasant feeling in some part of the body, even just a tiny little part. So, if you look for that, then the healing process can continue and amplify, even if it’s your ear where a pinky finger, maybe your heels come to the ground or some of your muscles dropdown more into your seat or if you’re lying down some parts of your back, start to release even more.

Candice Wu 28:19

Another thing to notice is your digestion coming back online. When we’re in a fight-flight or freeze response of the nervous system, the digestion goes offline. The energy goes towards the lens or in a conservation mode, so that it can eventually protect itself and come back to safety. If your body’s coming back to safety, you might hear gurgling sounds in your stomach or burping, feelings of movement in your gut, energy moving around, you might have more saliva or feel hungry or thirsty, need to go to the bathroom or eliminate… farting or just any response of the digestive system that wants to happen. Coughing might be part of this as well, gagging, things that are shifting in your throat, your mouth.

Candice Wu 29:24

Another thing to notice is sensation or energy, tingling down your limbs or in certain parts of your body. Your temperature might change. Heat is an indicator of deactivation, actually, the body is cooling down on the inside and expresses the heat outward. You might notice better hearing, ability to hear sound better or to hear it in a more appropriate way if where you were hypervigilant to sounds, hypersensitive, that maybe softens itself, and you’re just hearing what you need to hear, you’re able to block out certain sounds.

Candice Wu 30:12

And then you might also notice more resource or pleasure, seeing things that can support you, and openness to receiving or the ability and capacity to notice a loving person and receive what they may have to give you in your imagination or in real life or you may naturally gravitate towards feeling positivity or possibility, a feeling of gratitude.

Candice Wu 30:44

There might be some sort of openness that wasn’t there before even in a sense of “maybe” rather than “no”. So, noticing the difference between “maybe” and “no”, that that’s a shift where the ability to say “no” versus “maybe or yes”, which is related to a shift in your ability to say or do something that you want to do in your life with a little bit more ease or to be able to move towards it in some way, the capacity or a little bit of space to imagine or turn towards what was challenging or scary previously or what was something that your body just did not want to face, the ability to feel through what might have been more challenging before and even just feeling a little bit.

Candice Wu 31:40

You also might notice changes in your skin tone, a flushed or pinkish skin tone can signify that energy is coming into that space, into your body, into your face. It might connect with some activation that’s happening, that’s coming to deactivation, and coming towards a parasympathetic state in your body. You might notice an emotion that you’ve had, for example, grief, and as you touch back into the grief, notice if that grief is exactly the same in terms of how it feels in your body, what it might look like if you could see it, the intensity level, how much it takes up in you or feels your body feels like it can hold that feeling or not, and how much is that the same? Exact same or is just a little bit different?

Candice Wu 32:44

So, these are just a short list of things that you might notice as a change. The real question is just asking yourself, “what’s different right now? Is it different? Is anything different or is it exactly the same? And if it is exactly the same, you might notice that and take a break, and come back and see what else.

Candice Wu 33:11

And you might experience other signals or shifts that are happening for you, in your mind, the way you’re thinking, the way you’re noticing space between you and the experience you’re having, a shift in your body sensation or feeling of energy, and be careful to judge things as good or bad, because what may seem bad may actually be something that’s supporting the healing process. So, for example, if you’re constantly keyed up and exhausted, notice the next time you become tired if you’re doing some sort of healing process or something different, and when you feel that quality of tiredness, is it the same as the kind of exhaustion that came with being keyed up? Or is it the kind where your body is truly able to deeply rest. And it’s a different feeling that allows something else different to happen.

Candice Wu 34:24

So, as you notice these tiny little healing movements, keep in mind that these things may happen when you’re experiencing a conversation with a friend or with your therapist or healing practitioner or a coach or they may be happening on your own as you just tuned in. And what I’ve noticed is that if you’re working with someone who’s attuned to the nervous system, like a Somatic Experiencing or some sort of somatic therapy practitioner that’s trauma aware, then they can notice those things with you, and that adds another layer of validation and witness to how your body’s doing it right.

Candice Wu 35:09

It took me several times of experiencing it with a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, where they were saying, “Oh!” Notice how you naturally went and touched your thighs, and how for you now it’s feeling really soothing. So, your body knew what to do, and that gave me another layer of trust, but it really took many times of me hearing that for it to sink in another level, and another level and another level, to this space where I feel deeply trusting of what my body is showing me and what my body wants, and it feels so much more in sync with itself and in sync with how I’m expressing out in the world, what I reach for, how I move, what I choose, it all feels way more congruent, and I’m sure I can go many more levels beyond this, but I’m quite happy with where it’s at. So, when you have the support of someone who’s attuned to this and trained in this can really amplify your process.

Candice Wu 36:18

So, today’s episode is quite a short episode compared to most, but I wanted to leave that as is because it’s great to just have this bite-size experience. And if you want to tune in later this week, I’ll have an experiential that supports you in being with what’s going well, and noticing coherence in your body, noticing coherence in your being, and that can support wherever you are in life, for you to deepen in your capacity, to be with yourself and to be connected.

Candice Wu 36:54

I have always believed that good things come in small packages and With the healing process, it’s no different. So, we noticed these really small things. It just has so much potency, just like homeopathy. So, see what lands with you, and what you take with you. If you want to touch into this in writing, the transcript will be out very soon, and if you’d rather have this in a shortened and condensed version, there’s a blog post at CandiceWu.com/tinyhealingsteps that lists out these little things that you can notice to support yourself.

Candice Wu 37:40

There’s no one answer and no one way that the body heals and these are just some of the things you can notice, so that the next thing can happen, and the next thing can unfold and emerge for you in the way that your body wants it to and needs it, too.

Candice Wu 37:56

Before you go, I’d love for you to join my email list where I say send out a newsletter every other or every third week. This is where I share my travel updates, things that are going on events, retreats, self-love notes, podcasts, etc. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/embody, and be sure to check out all the transcripts for both the episodes with my guests and by myself as well as the experiential that are up on the website at CandiceWu.com/podcast. Under each episode, where you hit play, there’s a plus sign that pulls out into the transcript. So, if you rather digest things through reading them or skimming, it’s all there for you, and the ones that are not will be up shortly.

Candice Wu 38:49

There’s also a database for the podcast that you can search a podcast that might fit for you, and a database of the meditations and experientials by me and my guests, that one is that CandiceWu.com/meditations and all of the podcasts are meant to be resources for you to access at times that you need them. So, an experiential that you need, if you want to feel a certain way or to support something that’s happening and yourself, search what you need, and take what you need and just lovingly leave the rest.

Candice Wu 39:26

Thanks so much for joining me today, and I look forward to seeing you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Introduction

This experiential is to support you in what's going well as well as physiological coherence, and it can support you in times where you're feeling stuck, anxious or overwhelmed or anytime that you'd like to resonate with your body's intelligence.

This experiential is connected with the podcast about The Potency of Noticing Small Shifts and Tiny Healing Steps in the Body.

So, noticing the little things that can support more healing and more deepening or expansion, more capacity to be in ourselves, and connected with ourselves.

You can find the full episode at CandiceWu.com/smallshifts.

While noticing what's going well in your body or life can be such a simple thing to do, it can have a very profound and deep effect for the nervous system.

So, take a moment to begin just where you are right now.

Begin Anywhere

I invite you to take your hands and to touch your body in a way that offers soothing to it, asking nothing of your body, your heart or your mind right now, and allowing yourself to receive your own contact and attention, right now.

And as you do this, will begin to notice what's coherent in your being, right now, because you're alive, says that there's some semblance of coherence in you.

There's some intelligence of life force and consciousness moving you through the world even if there's suffering or struggle, even if you've had trauma or overwhelming experiences or things are not feeling like they're going well.

As you make contact with yourself and your body now, notice any place in yourself that feels even neutral or feels a deeper breath, some warmth or release something that might feel pleasant.

And if that's challenging, just imagine what it could feel like if you felt your own coherence.

And now, open up your awareness to the last day or a few days or even farther into the last week or month if you need to, and notice even the tiniest thing that says, “You're doing something right.”

Maybe that's flossing or having made yourself a meal or gotten yourself a smoothie, something healthy or maybe that's doing some work that you've been wanting to do for a while or taking the garbage out, anything that indicates you're doing something right.

You could also be being kind to someone, being kind to yourself, taking space, having boundaries.

These are signs of your presence being here and loving.

Appreciate and Notice

So, take this time here to appreciate any little things that you've chosen, that you've done right or that someone else has appreciated in you that you may typically overlook.

As you notice this, sense if it's easy or hard to do, just getting curious about what your own experience in this process is.

Be with how it feels to notice something that's going well in your life or that you've done right.

Feel any tiny little movements or shifts in the body.

Notice your breathing. Notice any emotions that are happening.

Feel any sensation and where it is in your body.

Notice how you experience yourself or your connection with yourself, and feel free to open up time even further.

Notice in the last two to three months something that's gone well or that you've done right.

Feel the effect it has on you as you notice that and bring that to mind and let yourself savor any good feeling or neutral feeling that comes from it.

What if You Noticed Yourself More?

And as we bring this experience to a close today, I'd like to ask you:

What if you notice more often what's going well where there's some place of coherence or intelligence working its way and it's magic through you? …Any way that your body supports itself or that you support yourself or others.

What if you notice that more often?

What would life be like?

And now, as we close today, I invite you to honor and thank yourself for taking the time to appreciate yourself.

Candice Wu 0:00

This episode is about the deep mystery of life, energetic transmissions and downloads that I’ve been receiving, things that you cannot explain, and I talked about past life memory, coming up through the experience of my elbow.

Candice Wu 0:18

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 0:52

Here’s a trigger warning for this episode. In this episode, I talk about rape, violence, interracial conflict, the uterus and vagina, and different past life experiences that come up around this. If those are sensitive to you or you’re not interested, you can feel free to jump to the experientials that are connected with this episode or you can look on the show notes and find where to jump in at the places that are past these topics, and if you are clicking on your, the thing you listen to, for podcasting, if you have some sort of app, sometimes you can see the different time markers and stamps, the titles for each section, and you can skip past to pass where the disclaimer points are the trigger warning points are.

Candice Wu 1:44

In this episode, I talk about things that I cannot prove, things I don’t have evidence for, except for me, and my being, my knowing and my body communicating that it’s resonating. I talk about past life, experiences a particular past life memory that connects itself to so many different memories and experiences I have in the present life, that all seemed to make sense to me, but you may be listening and thinking, well, I don’t believe in past life experiences, you don’t have to. It’s good to be skeptical, and also tune into what you feel. It’s also good to be able to let the mindset to the side, the mental logic so that you can receive something else if that’s interesting for you, but regardless of whether you believe in past life experiences, you might be interested in the story of how I brought some healing to my elbow, into my uterus, and the different things that connected up with.

Candice Wu 2:55

Later in the episode, I talk about the mystery of life, that is you and being in your specific energetic signature, what you were born to be in this life, and connecting with different ways of knowing. So, let’s jump in.

Candice Wu 3:14

Last week, I spoke about how I’ve been working with my elbow, there has been some pain there since mid-January, end of January when I was in Ireland, and the feeling I had at that time was that it just happened very quickly. It was nothing I particularly did, it seemed, physically. But suddenly, I had this very sharp and also deep pain in my elbow, right at the joint, which when I did certain movements, like twisted my arm, palm face down, and as far as it could go, it would be painful or lifting something a certain way, like grabbing something and lifting it upwards would be painful.

Candice Wu 3:58

So, all these different movements, and I recall a time when way back, I don’t know, 15 years ago, if something in my body would feel funny, I’d tell someone and they might say to me, “Well, just don’t do that movement.” And that just, it just didn’t really make sense to me, or like stop doing that, that thing that you’re doing, and I think there’s a place for seeing maybe a repetitive pattern and movements of your body and doing something to balance that or doing something different. But I also felt the instant that this feeling came into my body, it also connected with my low back, the left low back. And it felt like, “Whoa!” This is obviously very emotional, spiritual, and at this point in my life, I’m attuned to all that anyway, so, it was clear that something wanted to reach me, and to be known through me something really deep that wanted to surface so that I could claim even more of myself and know myself more deeply if wanted to be healed.

Candice Wu 5:11

So, if you listen to that last episode, Conversations with the Body, or if you didn’t listen, and you want to it’s at CandiceWu.com/conversationswiththebody. I talked briefly about some of the experiences that came out of the elbow, and that it’s still painfully there. It’s far less than before, and I also offer different experientials that you could use to connect with your body, to support your relationship with your body and turning on all of the different languages, that your spirit, soul, body, mind and heart use to communicate with you, to tell you what’s going on or to inform you of what it wants you to look at, in your present life or in your past, something that wants to be resolved, and the more we can tune in with that, with all the different ways that our being is communicating to us more we can listen. I find that we’re in the flow of our lives and who we are, we’re in harmony with all the parts of ourselves, they have a voice and a place.

Candice Wu 6:26

Do you think about being on a team, and whether that’s like a sports team or a work team, and if someone isn’t getting heard, that’s trying to say something very important. We’re trying to offer something and people ignore this one person, the whole team is out of balance, there’s a tension, there’s a resistance against some part, and I liken that to our inner parts, and who we are, all the parts of us, and all the ways that we are trying to be communicated to from deep inner parts of ourselves. If we’re resisting certain things that are speaking to us, then there’s a tension inside, that’s dis-ease. We don’t have to listen and believe everything, but to be able to witness it, and put it in its right place, in terms of sort out, if that’s the truth, if that’s something that wants to be healed. If that’s just a floating thought, that really doesn’t have much weight in me, or if, “Wow, this thing, this thought or experience or sensation in my body is really crying loudly to me.” And it may be getting even more intense as we resist it.

Candice Wu 7:53

If we try to continue to resist what’s wanting to be heard, and just acknowledged, then it will find a way to become stronger and stronger and fortify itself or find a way that will hit you in the place that you listen. Sometimes, that places hitting you financially, or sometimes it’s hitting you in the body where some part of your physical body starts to be in pain or not function as well, and we have to pay attention or we become exhausted or all of the above. Where it shows up in a relationship, and there’s conflict, a certain kind, that wants to direct you to look at something in yourself, something that’s just desperately asking us to look so we can feel even more empowered inside and responsible for our own lives, responsible for our energies.

Candice Wu 8:53

So, that episode “Conversations with the Body: Body Love and Multi-Language — EP82” was two weeks ago, and I want to follow this thread what’s going on with my elbow, and follow-up here. I saw my acupuncturist in Chicago twice. His name is Brent Garcia. He’s excellent. He is also on the podcast, early on in the podcast. He and I explored shame together. We talked about the light and the dark, and the fullness of our experience and what wants to be seen through us, and he spoke about his way of acupuncture, which is a Japanese way. It’s very gentle, and he’s super energetic, so does some Reiki sometimes, and it’s also a licensed massage therapist. He has a very full dimension in him of his work, and yet stays within the bounds of his work. But you know, me being me, I bring all sorts of stuff, and his presence is just the right presence for me at the moment to reveal, to allow things to reveal, and that is exactly what happened.

Candice Wu 10:06

In the two sessions a lot came up with my elbow, and I was ready for it. But I want to start the story with before I got to Chicago. If you’ve been following my Instagram, you might have seen that I decided to take on a project, I bought a used manual car, I really liked driving a manual, it just helps me feel like I can learn something and master something, and I have a different sense of creativity and control, and I created a hatchback camper. So, I created a sort of like a platform. So, there was flatness with plywood and hinges, and have a foam mattress that goes in the back and made curtains all sorts of stuff. So, I decided to take my mobile home on an adventure and go camping before I got to Chicago, like on the way to Chicago. I chose a campsite that had rustic sites and improved sites, which I think had like a bunch of electricity and better bathrooms, etc. So, something in me was like, I want to have the most rustic experience I can possibly have, I want to just be in the middle of the woods, and I think I’ve always had that deep yearning like to be in the stillness of the woods and to be at home in nature, submerged, immersed.

Candice Wu 11:38

And so it was a beautiful idea, until it got to be like 11 pm and it was pitch black, and I was hearing noises all around me. So, this is me sleeping in my car, and having to make the decision whether to close all the windows and lock doors or keep these sort of like window socks that I have on, which are like fabric screens that allow air to come through but no mosquitoes. So, I chose to keep those on with the doors locked, but really, you know, someone could just reach right through or move the fabric. If they knew to do that or once they saw what the scenario was, and I chose this because I could then hear if anyone was coming along, anyone coming close. I thought about leaving but I had set up all my stuff. It just felt also scary to pack up all my stuff at that moment and leave, and some deep part of me knew that everything was going to be okay, and another part of me knew well, I didn’t really know that.

Candice Wu 12:54

And at some point, I decided to stick it out. It was probably when I found my steak knife and decided to sleep with that in my hands. I didn’t sleep very well. The nervous system was pretty afraid but some grounding kept me okay, and eventually, at like three o’clock I felt like: “Okay, I passed the witching hour. I have gotten through it. And I’m going to be okay”, so I ended up sleeping the rest of the night. But what was coming up, before I could manage to fall asleep, I was just allowing what wanted to be seen about this to emerge, and what was coming up was me asking myself, “Well, what do I really fear? Is it the animals? What is it, is it people?” And it was the feeling that if anything happened to me, that nobody would know, that it was so distant, it was distant enough that people wouldn’t be able to hear me or come help.

Candice Wu 14:02

And then, I felt the specific fear, I had the image of a man coming right up close to me, like to the right side of my body about a foot away from my head, and the fear was that I would be hurt, taken and brutally raped. Perhaps a lot of women or smaller people, I don’t know. I can’t really speak for everyone else, but perhaps many other people also have that fear. But this, this fear, this image is very specific for me. And it’s something that while I was on this camping trip, I realized has been with me since I was young. When I was like five or six, I remember having the same fear, exactly, and a man coming right up close to me and coming up too close for me to have a realized too quick. So, I just took note of that. Hmm, interesting. You know, I’ve had this fear forever, like a terrifying fear when I was younger. When I was at home, I would be afraid that someone will come through the window or come from the closet. Yes, maybe normal childhood fears but a very specific brand and flavor.

Candice Wu 15:22

So, as I noted that I got to Chicago, had some beautiful workshops, constellations workshops, and restorative yoga and somatic experiencing workshop at the neighborhood studio Bloom Yoga Studio I love, and the family constellations workshops were the restore the love the flow of love, workshops, and they were just deep and powerful, and through this, I’d seen my acupuncturist, Brent. So, this is when it all comes together I love, it’s just really amazing when many pieces of things that I’ve sensed or noticed, and maybe even didn’t notice before but realized later all come together.

Candice Wu 16:08

I talked about an experience of a past life trauma, where I, after falling off a horse twice while I was in Spain last year, it revealed itself. I think I talked about it in the episode Past Life Trauma: Unfolding Freedom, it’s Episode 49, and you can find it at CandiceWu.com/ep49. That is part of the puzzle here because what I learned from my healing work around a falling off a horse twice, I knew that I wanted to heal to make sure that I wasn’t going to take on or allow something to manifest this trauma, if you can be really present with what’s happening and allow what wants to happen right there and be with it or at least as early as possible from an incident, and you can have a resource and allow the body to do what it needs to and it doesn’t become trauma.

Candice Wu 17:09

Trauma is the experience of overwhelm that stops the process from happening and manifest later so we can complete it. That’s one way to look at it, and so I was working with the falls and realizing that it was a much deeper issue and realized that it was a past life experience of being with a horse and then my healer had intuited that I got really stubborn about a decision, and other people were telling me what to do and I got just, you know, got on my horse and ran away, but I got in trouble, and it wasn’t the horse that got me in trouble or being with the horse. But that somewhere in this experience, I had died, is what I knew and what I felt. But it wasn’t really important at that time to know what the other details were. I just got what I needed at that time. Well, that experience came back and it wove into what was going on in my elbow.

Candice Wu 18:23

So, while I was in my session with Brent, at some point, he was doing some gentle touch on my arm, my right arm, and elbow, and it was really fascinating to allow this feeling that my hand my arm wanted to reach out to a man, specifically a male energy or person, and to know that they were actually there, to feel the kindness of this male presence, that my acupuncturist embodied at that moment for me. And what revealed after that were the words “you left me to die, you left me to die” and so I got curious about where that came from, and I’ve certainly had my share a whole armful, one could say, of attachment issues and relational trauma with my father. And maybe, those words applied there — “you left me to die” — in a way, yes, and in a way, not quite like there’s a different angle of you left me to die.

Candice Wu 19:37

So, I stayed with it kept feeling it, and I could feel the pain of that, the pain and the hurt and the betrayal. Eventually, Brent left the room, leaving me with some needles in very poignant spots, and I stayed with my imagination and what was coming to me, and I know when something feels like it’s hitting the spot when my body responds, when my emotions come flooding in or some sensation happens inside that is the resonance of my body saying, “Yes, there’s a memory of this. Yes, this, these are the words that can describe what happened or what I went through.” I don’t always say, all right, yep, these are exactly the facts, and I don’t know that it’s important in my book, at least, they don’t, these things don’t seem of consequential importance in this life. You know, if I feel I have a past life experience, and it gave me healing to recognize it, and it gives me strength to let it work its way through imagine, imagine what I wanted to happen instead or notice what did happen and honor, and then that whole thing releases in my body, if I stay with the emotions and the sensation, and I feel more whole afterward, and I also feel like I can then take with me the embodied wisdom that was of that life.

Candice Wu 21:20

All this to say, maybe these things didn’t happen, and yet doesn’t really matter because I feel like I have more of myself, and I feel like it can be part of my story. It is part of my story. So, back to me lying on the table here with some needles in my body, and I realized that I’m holding my dad’s hand, not my dad in this life, in a past life, in some life, another world. It feels that we’re Cherokee, it feels that we’re Native American. This is my tribe. He’s my father. He’s an important man. It feels like I’m saying to him, “You left me to die. You left me to die.” And as I stayed with it, and pictured him, I actually heard in me sensed in me and heard the words, “Yes, you’re right, I left you to the wolf. That’s only because we had to run, that’s only because we had to survive and fight, and you couldn’t do that. You were really far gone.”

Candice Wu 22:38

So, that got my curiosity, like, oh, it felt true, and why was I so far gone? And I felt myself lying, like in a pool of my own blood, and then as I looked, he was to my right, as I look to the left, I saw in sort of a flash of different parts all at once. Different parts of the timeline of the story all at once, that I was, in fact, brutally raped, and it was by a white man, and on our lands, and several men that he was with. But there was one particular one that lead the pack, and no one was around, that would help me. No one was around.

Candice Wu 23:34

So, that brought me back to the feeling of camping, and my fear that if nobody was around, no one could help me and I would die, I could die, and here it was, the real terror, the real thing that seemed to have happened, this thing that I feel has happened in a past experience that nobody was around, and my body was desecrated. It was as if the white man knew to come after the heart of the tribe, the uterus, the creative center, the young life of the tribe, which was me or, you know, I was one of them, and I felt like my uterus and vagina was like, desecrated, taken, and the words like, “You took something from me,” came up. And interestingly enough, those words came to me, those were the words I used in a recent experience with someone in a relationship, and I was surprised that I use those words, because I don’t really believe that they, that person was taking something from me, but it just came out out of my mouth, like you took something from me, and you took it and now, I can’t have it back, like it’s gone.

Candice Wu 25:10

So, there, I just like, I realized, wow, there’s another piece of the puzzle, like, this is why I felt this way, and it was in particular, that this particular relationship I had in the present day was with a white man, and there was a racial component that felt like it was coming alive, something, some bond that I had that wanted to be seen in some way or worked out in some way. And I don’t know, you know, some people might say that, maybe that was the same person that was in the past life that rapes me, I, my mind didn’t go that far, and it just went there in this moment, as I’m speaking to this now, which I’ll have to feel into later to see if that feels accurate, maybe, wow, just felt in a little bit. We’ll see, but there was a lot of anger about, like, aspects of our interactions that I felt were violent, and when I saw this image lying on the table, and my acupuncturist, I felt like, “Oh, I get it now, I get why I was trying to work that out with this person in my life right now.”

Candice Wu 26:37

So, back to the story. To rewind a bit to piece it all together, I was riding my horse, a horse that I was very in tune with, and I had gone flying off on my own, out to the middle of nowhere, perhaps or out somewhere I hadn’t been. Regardless, it was alone, and I was attacked, brutally and raped, and it came to me as, like a huge blindside, I was just not aware, because I think I was just so focused on what I wanted to do that it felt like this man came up to me really close, really fast, and I couldn’t stop it. And after that, during that my horse ran off, I have the feel that I’m a little uncertain what happened there and may not be important, I could have been off of my horse, and we just resting and then my horse ran off because he sensed danger or perhaps I was on my horse, and this all happened and maybe I got wounded or something and fell off or got ripped off the horse.

Candice Wu 27:59

Either way, the horse ran off scared, and I was with this man, this white man, and experiencing this extreme violence and rape, and hurt and power over me. And in that moment, I felt myself experience that nobody, nobody can hear me but I had the wisdom to talk to the horses, I kept my connection with my horse inside, can’t help come back for me. I can feel it now in my words, I can feel it in my heart, like how beautiful that connection is, but also how painful the experience was, and I feel that connection of psychic ability with horses, like being in the spirit world and connecting with communication that is not directly, like right next to her and words but in a knowing in an energy. That was something that Sara Fancy reminded me of. She’s the horse constellations person that I spent five days with and with her horses, her herd there, and she one day, just said to me, “Oh, yeah, you can just talk with her psychically and ask if they want to be touched.”

Candice Wu 29:31

And it felt like it opened up this whole knowing of, well, I know how to do this, like, this is something that’s second nature to me, and this image of this past life experiences really clear as to why, because I was so in connection with my horse and the horses, and they were part of me and part of the land, part of the tribe, and we love each other. And so, I here I am telling my horse, like, “Go get help coconut, my father, and he did, and that’s when my father found me on the floor, left to die, and he in the clarity of the spirit, I hear the words from him saying, ”I didn’t really leave you to die. He did.“ Like, the white man did, and we had to protect the family. And I heard myself say, ”Dad, you haven’t left anything.“ There’s a feeling in myself that the white man took something from me, and my recovery, in that moment, the restoration and healing in this moment of me, more so, in the present-day spirit connection, said, ”I have life, I have everything and you have life.” Please know that I am alive, and they can never take who I am away and who you are away, and I felt the deep breath, a lot of tears in grief. I didn’t quite feel much anger. At this time, I think in my present-day life, I had spent a lot of time feeling anger, lately, and in a long span of my life working with anger. So, here I just felt a lot of grief and a lot of pain.

Candice Wu 31:54

There are also things I haven’t mentioned yet. If you listen to my podcast about a year and a half ago, when I was in Bali, the one that is on spiritual crisis, it’s Episode 13, CandiceWu.com/ep13. This episode is where I talked about having a UTI and all this stuff that was coming up around from the feminine and how it was moving through my body and anger, and there have been a few things that have come up lately where there I felt some tension in my uterus, and as I’ve talked to it, it has said, “Let me be free, you know, stop trying to constrict me.” And there’s a lot of insight that is coming from those words, more than I’m going to say here. It can feel very private, to speak to what that means at the moment, but there is a thing I can say now is that feels like my uterus, my body, my vagina, my whole being, my heart wants to be able to love totally freely and without fear, like resolving the fear, and then being in the free-loving, and to acknowledge all that I love. And that one love doesn’t overtake another or cancel another out, but that it all can exist together, the circle for love is much greater.

Candice Wu 33:35

So, all of this stuff that was coming to me on the table, and my acupuncturist was really connecting with all these different parts of my body that were speaking, not just my elbow, but my uterus, all these different experiences that were part of the puzzle piece to this one past life experience that seems to complete, complete something in me, and also gives me a lot more clarity. I’ve always had a connection with Native American ceremony, ritual, and tradition. Whether or not I know, like what it is or not, I haven’t been very, very studied in it, but have connected and picked up things along the way, and they just feel like home to me. They feel really like something I’ve known before, and this gives me a lot clearer picture of why and how I was so connected with the land and tribe, animals, plants, that’s very much in my being.

Candice Wu 34:50

So, I feel a lot more at peace to the past part of me, feels more resolved and has reclaimed what felt like it was taken from me, and I feel really resourced by the horses, also by men, my father, and the tribe, the women as well, and the earth. I feel that the earth took care of me and saw me, saw the experience, the animals heard, psychically heard the experience, knew the experience even though they weren’t there witnessing it. What I mean is that the violence and the rape, and also I felt like I couldn’t scream, in that experience, I couldn’t even shout, and I wondered why and I felt my neck being sliced, I felt like my vocal cords were cut out. And yeah, I couldn’t scream, and that’s something that I have connected within a lot of different places like culture, really being Chinese, there’s a lot of silence, not being able to speak for different reasons, you know, people died when they spoke out, but in this recovery, I realized that my creative force isn’t actually taken away, even though in this life, I died this way, and there’s some cellular memory of my body that remembers this, and felt like I had been lost in that. But like, I as a whole being of love and awareness and consciousness. I, as this particular individual soul, had been taken, and parts of me have been taken, and that really isn’t true, even though the experience was that in that moment, but now I feel a lot of restoration, I feel I could never die, I feel I am always alive, and I will live on and you will live on.

Candice Wu 37:12

This is my message to my father and that life, you will have more, and that really gave me a lot of life and breath, grief moving, and I can feel the pain of the lineages, the white man, white patriarchy, white fear, tribe, the tribe’s fear and violence and protection. This is not all to blame white men at all. It’s really to show, to illuminate the violence, pain, and fear that is living in all of us, with that, particularly, I experienced through my body and that life. So, I recognize you may or may not believe in past lives. This may sound “whoo” to you or who knows what. If you’ve listened this far, that means something, that’s interesting but I can understand if this is not your cup of tea. And I’m about to talk about a few more out there things perhaps, you know, in a past self of mine, I would have thought these things were really out there but also knowing that feeling this knowing that I think this is true, but I have no proof or I have no, you know, I can’t quite, I just can’t prove it, but more things I can’t prove in this episode.

Candice Wu 38:52

Shortly after having this experience, I met up with Darshan Mendoza, who is a beautiful, beautiful person living in Hawaii, and she experienced the volcano erupt a year ago and wrote a book about it. I have interviewed her for the podcast, she, her interviews coming up in a couple of weeks, like the end of August, so, stay tuned for that. You can find it at CandiceWu.com/darshan, once that publishes, but I met up with her in Chicago, she was there what amazing timing, for me, for us, and among many things we talked about, she, after hearing the story of my past life, and the healing that’s coming through, told me about the book, The Sophia Code. It’s written by Kaia Ra who channels information and has experienced some very brutal experiences through sex trafficking when she was just a young kid, and yet has been able to still keep her ability to channel very clear. And one day, a voice came to her it was brutal, really loud, and it was saying, “I’m Sophia”, and Sophia is the Divine Feminine, creator, Sophia Gaia, Mother Earth, the feminine Christ consciousness.

Candice Wu 40:31

And so, I’m listening to this book on Audible, and it’s a bit robotic, the way she speaks on it, I think maybe she was trying to say it this way or something, I’m not sure, but still, since she’s set this book with a vibration of what she received in her interactions and channeling, I’m feeling an incredible energetic transmission. I’m receiving this like, download, it’s like, you could just hit download, and then it loads in, you know, you’re watching the percentage of something downloading, and as it goes higher and higher, like I’m feeling it in my body, it’s pushing out all of what the fears, the grief, the suffering that was in its place before, and filling my body with more knowing and love.

Candice Wu 41:25

So, what I’m getting from this, specifically, is that it’s not words that I, or thoughts that I haven’t heard before, or thought about before taking in before, but from this specific frequency, it’s extremely powerful. It’s different for me, it’s bringing another dimension in, and the words that are specifically bringing me more are the words, Sophia Dragon Tribe, and Star Nation, the White Buffalo Woman, all these words that she’s bringing in these words that signify an energy in a whole magical level of being and love that’s coming through. All that’s giving me some sense of memory, it feels like I know I’m a dragon, feels like, I’m part of Dragon Tribe, and Star Nation like this is my people, and all that might sound crazy to you, I remember hearing the author say, somewhere like, “I can’t talk about Sophia dragon tribe, my career is going to go down the tubes,” and yet, her message was, the message she got was, I have to this is important, and this is the way it needs to be transmitted, and that’s how I feel at the moment, I don’t quite totally understand everything, mentally.

Candice Wu 42:56

And in the last several years, I’ve let go of that need to mentally or rationally, make logic of something, and that’s really served me well. I know that the brain is important and the mind is very important. When we think through things, sometimes, that really helps us, and I’ve spent a lot of years and time doing that in my life but I also used it too much, I overcompensated for my sense, in my heart and in my spirit, my intuition by using my brain to rationalize and analyze, make sense of and also problems solve, that now I’m really enjoying just tuning in, sensing the energy of something and using the other ways of intuitive and knowing that I do have, we all have. And that is a way of knowing that gives me, often gives me the right way for me. Sometimes, I say yes or no to things that it doesn’t even make sense, and I’ve let go of that need to make sense of something, and it’s not quite coming from impulse, or irrationality, even though it’s quite irrational, right? Maybe you could call it that, and really, but it’s not impulse or perhaps a traumatized part of me.

Candice Wu 44:21

Although, sometimes, it’s hard to tell the difference, if it’s some part of me that feels traumatized and needing something or if it’s an intuitive part that says, from a very clear, pure place, yes or no for me about something or this is the answer for me, or sometimes I find out later that some of my decisions weren’t so aligned at the source of me, but aligned to some traumatized part of me or part that wanted some sort of retribution for some past thing, something that’s living in the past. But I’m really encouraging you out there, if this is interesting for you, to deepen and cultivate the part of you that has knowing of other forms than the mind, than the mental logic. Sensing, tuning in, using the many languages and tongues, the multi-dimensional ways that our body communicates our hearts, the ways that we may know something without being able to explain it, and to trust yourself, so that you can learn to deepen in your trust. It gives us many ways of moving about the world. It connects us to the energetic, the spiritual, the more subtle ways of being. It connects us to animals, connects us to nature and talking with the plants and earth, talking with other beings and energies.

Candice Wu 45:58

And if you, I swear, if my younger self, listen to these podcasts, probably maybe more like my 20-year old self, high school, college self, she would be like, WTF like, What are you talking about? You don’t make any sense. This can’t be that like, judgment, just judgment. But now, I’m all about it, and it’s really served me very well to trust the knowing I have and see the outcome and to see where I may need to fine-tune and refine my listening in myself or what part of me was showing up so that I can know that part better, and then be clearer about the boundaries, like, is that the part of me that was wounded or is this a more, a deeper knowing of some sort that is not from the wound, from my wisdom.

Candice Wu 47:01

So, as I’m listening to The Sophia Code, I’m receiving a more fortified sense that we’re here to do life uniquely, and specifically, the way that our energetic signature and blueprint shows us, and that is always a free will and choice that is always from our sovereignty. She uses that word a lot in the book, that we’re meant to know our deep creative sovereignty, and the sovereignty of all beings, including the animals and the land, and to remember that we are sovereign, to remember that we have freedom, and all of the conditioning and belief sets and limits that we think are here and that we have manifested.

Candice Wu 47:54

That’s actually not the entire reality of things, but we’re deeply the love that is of all things, and the language that she’s using is that we are Sophia. We are the energy of the feminine Christ consciousness that encompasses every single energy, even masculine energy, and give life is love, is the pure being and consciousness that each of us are. I love when things that resonate with me deeply also align with other things that resonate deeply in the language set of the Vedas and Tantra have always brought me to that feeling and that knowing of freedom, all possibility, and that we are able to choose all possibility, even though our body and our energy systems, right now, have collected in a certain way and propel us in a certain way of being. That there’s more that we are, and that more gives us the ability to heal what we think we are, that we are really not.

Candice Wu 49:26

In this book, she also channels seven or eight different energies archetypes, some who have come into earth form as humans for some time, but who have been guides or mentors for all those who want to heal, or people who were interested in, in that particular energy like Mary Magdalene or Kuan Yin, Tara, and she talks about the Sophia Dragon Tribe, White Buffalo Women, as I mentioned, a couple of others. Some of the pieces of those stories and some of what she says is interesting to me and really light something up in me and other parts don’t resonate at all, parts where the, where she talks about chakras. From what I’ve learned in Sanskrit studies, the word is chakras, and the sound is chakra. And so, when she said chakras, I almost was like, “What has she been saying?” I don’t get it. Which well, you know, I can still let it bypass the part of me that says, I don’t get it, but at the same time, it wasn’t clicking into my system, and I think that was part of why.

Candice Wu 50:52

So, there are parts of the book that really don’t fit for me right now, but right in the beginning, even in the preface, I was already crying, and so, I knew I was receiving something and it was allowing me to release other things out doubts and fears that had been living in me. So, do you experience this, do you experience things you cannot explain, but that you know, there’s something there for you? Things that give you an energetic upgrade or download, and the sort of space when you receive something new that really is enlivening you in a way, but also feels like you’re in major construction because it dismantles other parts of you, and grief can come through anger, hurt, other emotions, all of that coming to the surface to be felt, honored and continue to move and flow. It wants to move out, to experience a sense of knowing inside of you and how, what does it feel like when you know something? Or when you feel something is not right for you, it’s a little bit off? What’s that like for you?

Candice Wu 52:19

And are there things in your life that are going on right now or ways you’re being, things you’re involved with, or relationships where you feel something’s not quite right for you? It’s hard to pinpoint, maybe, or maybe it’s speaking loudly, screaming at you. This is a deep mystery. Life is a deep mystery, and when we try to rationalize everything, or make it fit into our ego, egoic mind, it collapses, what we experience into something flatter, one that no longer has the dimension of magic or mystery, the beauty, the unknown and unseen. And to do that, we must know something, we, it’s funny, we must say we don’t know. We must acknowledge and be in a place of not knowing anything at all, and being able to scrap what we do think we know or have known before, to know something more.

Candice Wu 53:33

So, while I say I know all of this and what happened, and all that I’m also open to it being washed away with something else and a new knowing to come, and also that it integrates so that it’s just a part of my body, my body wisdom, my embodied knowledge, me as a moving being, moving body of wisdom and also different possibilities, pleasant and unpleasant. So, how do you support yourself in embracing the mystery of life? What do you do that connects you with what’s unseen and what’s beautiful, and what’s truly you? Right now, for me, it’s just connecting with the words and the vibration that Sophia Dragon Tribe brings, and Star Nation and I’ve just been opening and asking out loud, sometimes, and in me in a sense prayer and meditating with, just saying, “Star Nation, show me what I need to know, show me what’s next. I receive you. I open to the wisdom that’s here, I open to all of it, open to experiencing.”

Candice Wu 55:15

This might be similar if you have connection with certain animals or ancestors or people in your life that are now, that if you feel they’re bringing something to you to learn, there’s a feeling of magic about the connection or maybe fear that shows you, that shows itself first that eventually wants to show you there’s something there for you.

Candice Wu 55:43

In the movie, Aqua Man, I love this part when he is about to do the big thing that he’s meant to do. I’m not going to say what that is, but he tells his mother, I’m scared, and she said, “Good, then you’re ready.” So, perhaps the fear is here showing you there’s something here for you, and that it does mean if you can feel the fear, you are ready for what’s coming and what’s next for this next opening or action on this journey of you being you, being at peace with yourself in harmony with yourself. Who you truly are, not all the belief sets that have accumulated the energies that have accumulated and collected itself to create your physical body and the aches and pains, and tensions that manifests itself as so you can see it, but the deeper you that wants to come through, the cells of your body that know they are loved somewhere and want to be reminded that you are loved. Let us embrace the deep mystery of life.

Candice Wu 57:12

Thank you so much for joining me today. It felt really alive and connected in sharing this episode. I invite you to connect with me if something inspires you or if you have questions, something didn’t rub you the right way, anything. If you feel compelled, I invite you to follow that. I’ll add a few healing experientials to this episode around embracing the mystery of life, around sensing and letting your mental logic be bypassed so that you can tune into knowing, not exactly sure what will emerge. So, you’ll just have to see later this week as it comes out or find it at the episode link at CandiceWu.com/deepmystery.

Candice Wu 58:12

If some of the topics in this episode interested you, you can also go to my website at CandiceWu.com/podcast to find other episodes that relate to these topics. Some of them include the episode about the Soul and Science of Trauma. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/ep32, Embracing All the Parts of You at CandiceWu.com/partswork. The episode Freedom and Expansion: The Terrifying Gifts of Spiritual and Existential Crisis AKA WTF is Going on? #AmIGoingCrazy? – EP13, that’s at CandiceWu.com/ep13, and the one I mentioned earlier, Past Life Trauma: Unfolding Freedom at CandiceWu.com/ep49.

Candice Wu 59:07

I also mentioned my acupuncturist, Brent Garcia, who is awesome. I totally recommend his work. It’s super gentle yet powerful, and you can listen to his podcast at CandiceWu.com/brent. I also mentioned anger, working with anger, you can find that podcast at CandiceWu.com/anger. Feel free also to join me on my newsletter that comes out one or two times a month. This is full of self-love notes, podcast episodes that are up to date, experiential, events, workshops, retreats, and experiences that you can join in on with me. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/embody.

Candice Wu 59:54

If you found that this podcast or the experientials or guests on the podcast have given you something, brought you in touch with something of yourself that felt important or inspires you to love yourself or anything that you connect with here, I would invite you to contribute back to the podcast and feed it, nourish it with your energy, and some donation that fits for you, feels aligned for you. You can find all that information at CandiceWu.com/patreon on how to contribute, what also rewards or gifts you can receive in return if you’d like something else that is a little bit extra, like the Embodied Healing Group or personalized meditations. And I just want you to know how much your words, you’re sharing, your contributions, all fuel me and praying each episode with love and ease.

Candice Wu 1:01:06

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening, and today I’ll leave you with a little bit of music as we close today. And as you take in the sense that you have about your life, being the mystery, your life being the way, you being the way.

Candice Wu 1:01:31

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

Introduction

This experimental is to support you in your knowing and your being, in the deep mystery of life that is you, and connecting with more of yourself, more of yourself than your mental logic and receiving messages from different parts of you, your body, your heart, your soul, your intuition, your thoughts as well.

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 artists sharing my personal journey of vulnerability, offering meditations and guided healing support, and co-creative conversations with healers and wellness practitioners from all over the world.

Inspiration for This Experiential

This experiential is inspired by the episode that is connected with around energetic downloads, things you cannot explain, sensing and knowing instead of logic, as well as past life experiences that emerged for me. It’s also connected with this sense of who we are as the way of our lives, who we are and aligning with specifically who we are in order to love ourselves the deepest that we can in this life. You can listen to the introductory episode at CandiceWu.com/deepmystery.

Let’s Begin

And now, let’s jump into this experiential.

Go ahead and find a place to sit or lie down to be with yourself. Feel free to touch your heart or belly. Feel your own resonance with yourself.

Notice where your mind is. Let yourself release your attention on any of the things that are in your outer world — work, school, if you have school, stressors, relationships, daily life tasks. Invite all of that energy to turn towards yourself with great love and power, strength, wholeness, and ask nothing of your body, your heart, and your mind right now.

Feel this space of asking nothing of yourself that there’s nothing here in this moment to do, nothing to accomplish. Feel what it’s like to be in your body, right now. Be with yourself at peace and in harmony.

Feel anything that’s coming up in you. Feel free to close your eyes if you haven’t already, as you go even deeper and as we openness space together with love completely surrounding us, circling us, filling the entire space that you’re in.

And with your breath receiving and drawing in the love surrounding you, let it fill your whole body, your heart, your energy. Let it touch every single cell of your body, reminding you, reminding each cell, tissue, muscle and organ, bone and the mind of who you are, that you are this love, letting every cell be reminded that you are love.

Let this connect with the core of your being that already knows you are love, the part of you on touched by conditioning and layers of beliefs and experiences that take you away from love, take you away from knowing and truth, only to remind you of a deeper truth and knowing that you love that is connected with all love.

And we invite our mental logic, the mind the analytical part of us to step to the side of it. We let it have an open door that lets more knowing and information come in and be seen even if the mind and the logic don’t understand.

Connect with this moment, this breath that connects you with the deep mystery of life. Connect with the space of not knowing and unknowing. Letting everything that you know or think take a rest, for now, letting your feeling sense and intuition, your body, letting that all be as you sense and feel. Making yourself available, making this space for more to be known more to reveal itself to you for what is already here to show itself.

Releasing Statements

Feel free to say in your mind or out loud, “I let go for this moment of my need to know. I am in the place of not knowing. It is safe to be in uncertainty and not knowing right now.”

And as you feel those words, allow any emotion, sensation or movement to come up. There may be parts of you that resist or feel scared, feel anxious or nervous or want to fight you.

Witness all those parts of you and feel or say the words, “I am open to the deep mystery of my life. I surrender to my life as the mystery of being.”

Say, “I forgive myself for judging myself for all the times in places I did not trust my life, and for all the times in places I forced my knowing to fit into rational logic where I may have cut-off parts of myself in order to make sense.”

Tune in and feel what these words evoke in your body right now, staying with any emotions that come up.

Track what’s happening in your body with a loving witness, a gentleness that allows you to keep seeing what’s here, feeling what’s here, and if there any other words or intentions that come up to you in this moment, say them to yourself or out loud as they come to you, anything that you’re doing wisdom wants you to acknowledge or say or be open to.

And as you connect with anything that comes up, maybe there’s nothing, that’s okay too. Stay with your body and feel your hips, feel your legs, feel any part of your body that helps you feel that you are here.

We’ll conclude with the words, “I am myself. It’s safe to be me, and I embrace myself fully or I begin to embrace myself fully.”

Notice how this experience is for you right now, and what happens for you, what images and emotions, what feeling or sensation in your body, what color, texture or feel that is inside, and come back to the loving presence that we called in in the beginning — the love that’s surrounding you, that we invite here and that already is, the part of you that already knows truth and already knows who you are, that you are love, and slowly come to this moment of honoring yourself.

Honoring Yourself

Honor this time and space you’ve taken, honor who you are. Appreciate who you are or what you can appreciate in this moment, and go to the simplest things, appreciating that you’re alive right now.

Thank yourself for being with yourself in this little space and time and slowly start to move your body or your hands to allow movement or self-touch that is soothing, connecting or calming, and as you open your eyes, notice the things around you that make you feel like yourself or support you — colors that you like objects that look pleasant, nature. Look at your surroundings and just feel that you’re here.

Closing

And as we close today, I’ll leave you with a little bit of music to bring an open the senses even more into the space that you’re in, this life, this body that is your vessel and temple that moves you through life and that you get to create with, you get to partner with in this deep mystery of life that is you.

Thank you so much for joining me today, and if you’re interested in checking out more healing experientials or meditations go to my website at CandiceWu.com/podcast. Also, there are interviews and experientials by other practitioners and guests.

It’s great to be here with you today, and see you next time on the Embody Podcast.