Candice Wu 0:00
This episode is about how we can receive from ancestors or relatives that are mentally sick, toxic or unhealthy. How do we use our challenging family relationships as an opportunity for deeper self-love, and how to sort out what is love and what isn't love, sorting out the abuses and what's tangled up with love so that we can have a pure version of loving ourselves and loving others.

Candice Wu 0:31
Hello and welcome. You're listening to the Embody Podcast, a show about remembering and embodying your true nature, inner wisdom, embodied healing, and self-love.

Candice Wu 0:45
My name is Candice Wu and I'm a holistic healing facilitator, intuitive coach, and artist sharing my personal journey of vulnerability, offering meditations and guided healing support, and having Co-Creative-Conversations with healers and wellness practitioners from all over the world.

Candice Wu 1:06
Hello, and welcome back to the Embody Podcast. How are you doing? This is your weekly dosage of checking in with yourself if you don't do that daily, or if you don't remember to do it. But it's your chance to check in with yourself and see how you're doing. Have some compassion for yourself. Turn on the gentleness and kindness towards your heart. Yesterday, I spent the day after having a week of socializing a lot and putting my energy outward. I spent the day mending things. I had this pile of things I had stacked up on my travels as well as probably the last like two years, two or three years even like old bracelets I had broken that I love and want to keep and remake. I used to make jewelry and these are things that can do by myself, sweaters and leggings, pairs of gloves that had just broken or had a hole in them that they needed to repair and other odds and ends that just wanted attention. And so as I was doing that, I was asking myself what needs mending on the inside? What needs tending to, or attention? So as we start this podcast today, I invite you to ask yourself that, what needs mending in your life? What needs mending or repair in your heart?

Candice Wu 2:44
And check in both spiritually and emotionally as well as physically what to what does your body need? What does your heart need? What is your soul need?

Candice Wu 2:59
So, as you sense into that today, I invite you to do something about that this week and do whatever mending or nourishment your spirit or your soul needs. And offer that to yourself as a way to take care of your inner world.

Candice Wu 3:20
The pile of things that I was mending is almost complete, there are a few things that just need other materials. But that just felt so good to get that out of the way with, especially since those things had just been sitting there or constantly being a reminder to me like there's a hole in my pants. And you know, how often are we just ignoring the things that want to be tended to, and how good it feels to really look at that get that through and done with and to feel the wholeness again of what we love or what is there. And what's inside of us, the wholeness that something is attended to and taking care of.

Candice Wu 4:10
So, before we jump in further to the episode today, I want to share with you this new Dream Work class that I put on Skillshare. It is a class on how to prepare your body and your physiology to thrive in your dream life and to better remember your dreams as well as have better sleep and feel more embodied. So, this class consists of six different practices, better embodiment practices that will support your nervous system and feeling a more restful and relaxed state, feeling safer in your body, and therefore, more creativity, play an exploration in yourself so that your dream life can open up and you can remember your dreams with much more ease and have more restful sleep that gives the space for your dream life to speak itself to you to give you the images so that you can learn more about yourself and bring those energies into your life, as well as receive your own inner wisdom. I love working with dreams. I had this awesome dream last night.

Candice Wu 5:19
There are some dreams that are just so personal and enlivening and yet it's exciting to work with them and actually have them out in the open. So, I work with somebody on my dreams, as well as a lot of my friends enjoy talking about Dream Work with me. So, I will bring this dream to one of my dream friends possibly, or my dream worker. And it just, I feel like something's going to come up around that and give me even more life, I can already feel it. And that's how I love to work with dreams is to feel it in the body, what the image gives you or the experience of something that's being shown to you through your dream. And that way, it can unfold even more. And the true and specific meanings and experience can bring up more in life.

Candice Wu 6:18
So those, the exploration of Dream Work in this way will be something down the line that I offer in the dream classes. But if you want to check out the one that I'm talking about now, it's at CandiceWu.com/dreamphysiology. If you go there, you can also get the two months for free premium membership of Skillshare. And if you're signed up on my newsletter, the first 75 people that are tuning in from my newsletter will get this for free, or if you were a Patreon supporter, you'll get that class automatically for free. You'll get the link for that. You can also join Patreon and offer a contribution if you think like to, to access this as well. And that's a CandiceWu.com/Patreon. I appreciate all the support that all of you out there giving me, even if you're just listening and enjoying this, even touching one person with each podcast makes a difference for me. And it means a lot to me. If you know if somebody that's interested in Dream Work or remembering their dreams better, feel free to share this with them. If you feel inspired, I'd really appreciate it so that more people can learn about this and dive into knowing themselves better.

Candice Wu 7:36
So, a few more updates from me, I, as you know, as many of you know, I'm back in Michigan. And it's right now it's almost like a blizzard out there. It's beautiful. It's cold, but I'm so warm in my body and my heart. Because I'm just really feeling the nourishment that I'm giving myself and happy to be around family again, and take care of myself in this way.

Candice Wu 8:04
Many of you know I had this really challenging experience in Ireland while I was working with horses and staying with a host family. And instead of just saying a few, I'm glad that's over. I've been taking the pieces of what not only what I learned that was really good from the experience, but also the challenging pieces and what might still be in store for me to clear up inside of myself. It feels like a little bit of debris and residue left over from that experience that really actually just touched into some of the past experiences I've had and the triggers that I have. It's like I was going back for clean up. And actually, that's what my one of my astrologers said that between the month of December and March of this year, that it would be like I was going back into all the stuff of this life, the karma, the lessons that have already come up, and just doing a little bit of cleanup.

Candice Wu 9:07
Some of you may also be on that journey, where you're cleaning up the debris and clutter of trauma and what is stopping you from just loving yourself and being in your true expression. And if you are on that journey, or if you're beginning it, I just keep encouraging you to take the time to nourish yourself along the way and take breaks around it. Do things that feel really good to you and remind you of, remind you of who you are or make you just feel like you're loved and taken care of. And the beauty of it is that you get to do that for yourself. So, as I bounced out of being very social last week, going salsa dancing with old friends, seeing a couple of people that really wanted, that I really wanted to see that were from a long time ago. And seeing a lot of my family, I shifted gears into this feeling of retreat and mending things was step one, and then shifted into what are the things I want to do with myself. And some of those include taking a salt bath, where I'm staying, I don't have a bathtub. And so, something that I really want to do, maybe I'll go to my aunt's house and do that. But what are some things that you want to do with yourself?

Candice Wu 10:37
Would it be nice to go to the movies by yourself? Or would it be nice to journal, or listen to some music and just rest? What can feel nourishing to some part of you that really wants attention?

Candice Wu 10:51
I also want to share an experience around my own healing that is very in process and in progress. A lot of people ask me, how do you, what kind of experiences do you have? Or how do you work through X, Y, and Z? What happens if you have tension in your body? And also, since I do share some of my healing work with myself on this podcast, people often wonder or have the experience that it seems like I can get through a healing process for easily. And while that is true, that a lot of times things just open up for me easily now, it wasn't always the case. I'd get very stuck with certain emotions for a long time. And they were held in my body with a lot of tightness and pain even. And I haven't had pain in my body for quite a while, maybe two or three years now. When I eat well and when I'm digesting well, not just food wise, but energetically, I'm digesting my emotion and experiences and the things that are coming up, move through me because I give it that attention, then my body feels very clear. And I feel grounded and present.

Candice Wu 12:12
Well, while I was in Ireland, and as I, as I got home, my back started hurting, there was this pain in my lower left side, lower left back and upper right, like shoulder blade that started happening yesterday, actually. So, when this happens, I like to just let my body show me and tell me what is going on. And I have a few techniques to do so. One is just feeling and allowing, allowing movement and allowing what my body wants to do to happen and seeing what images, what emotions and thoughts come up to me and following that not lead, following that, those breadcrumbs. And another way I work with it is to ask the pain, imagine it visualize it and see it and ask the pain or the tension. What are you are what do you need? Not from an analytical place but from sensing in an intuitive place where whatever I see or hear from it. I listened to without any filter and explore it, kind of like I'm talking to a friend with a lot of compassion. And without any need to make sense of it.

Candice Wu 13:34
All this time, I wasn't getting much by asking, so I followed the lead of my body with movement. And this sharp pain in my right shoulder blade came out as anger and wanting to like stab something. So, I'm just doing the movement of that and feeling the anger and feeling this desire and need to clear the space that's just for me. And as you already have heard on this episode, that's kind of where I'm at, I'm going back more inward, to have retreat with myself and do things I need to do and want to do. And it requires clearing up some space for that. But this was deep, deeper seeded. This had to do with a younger self that needed the space to be herself and to learn about herself. And that anger, I couldn't exactly explain it all, but it is followed it, let it be felt. And when emotion comes rising up, I know I've hit a sweet spot or I'm resonating with the energy of what's lodged in me. So, that's coming through and then suddenly, I held my right foot. And it reminded me of an experience that I had in somatic experiencing training where this other training was holding my foot and I was crying. And something about that felt really right.

Candice Wu 15:08
It was an unspoken experience and need of my body for this leg to be held. And I had the words, don't let go, don't let go. Don't let go for me in that experience. And that resonated right with my present experience. And what that unfolded to was some of my younger, my younger child experience of feeling the need for someone to hold me and help me through some really hard emotions, especially a male figure. And this wasn't exactly there in my life. But also, it connected back to a piece of my grandfather's experience where he was given away when he was five years old. And the words don't let go, don't, don't leave me, don't, don't let go. That just seemed to fit right in the context of my grandpa as a five-year-old. And just imagining that experience of trauma as he was given away. The stories he's given away from money after his mother died. And his father couldn't take care of him. I don't know the rest of the story. But it seemed like he had never accepted his adoptive mother. And I know that it's connected when I feel into that and somehow that changes something in my body.

Candice Wu 16:40
And so my body started shaking, my right leg started shaking and releasing. And it's like, you know, when a faucet, that stuck gets turned on and it starts like, like just coming out a little bit. And then it starts spreading open. It's like that, like the energy that's black there in the body is trying to make its way out. And that's what the feeling was in my right leg. And it could feel some of what was in my back release. And so, there's a little more to my process, which I won't say here but what opened up through this experience was not only my experience but an ancestral experience that was still connected to me and a repeat in my life. I share this with you now also feeling this pain in my back. It's not completely gone. So, I know that there's more. But what I do experience now that I didn't win the past is that I have a lot more enjoyment along the journey of healing. I experienced this, this pain as okay, what is here for me to explore. And I don't pressure myself to make it go away as much because I do feel the trust and belief in myself, the faith that I can process through this and it will shift, it will move, it will leave, it will reveal more to me. And I've gone through that enough times to know that that's a reality for me.

Candice Wu 18:18
I used to feel worried and scared like what was wrong with me, and this won't go away. And that was just before I had the tools to move through an embodied healing experience that got me through to the other side. It doesn't mean it doesn't keep happening for me, where I have layers and layers of healing. But I do experience it very differently. And I have less now. So, it's a bit of hope for all of you as well that are out there, struggling or feeling a lot of challenging healing experiences coming up, that there's a different experience as you continue on and find more capacity and resilience and can even find pleasure in learning about yourself through feeling. I wasn't sure what to do this episode on. And as it was coming closer to the need for me to record this episode, I felt kind of lost, like what am I going to talk about this week? I have a lot of topics lined up in a way. But I really like to feel into what resonates right in the moment, this week, and what I'm experiencing and where things are evolving. So, because this is a living and breathing podcast, I just threw out the list and wondered what I would do. And the beautiful thing is that someone, a listener wrote to me a question and is a very important and deep question. And that's the topic for today. So, when I read you the question that this listener shared with me, which leads into this topic that I'll discuss today, as well as the experiences that will go out this week.

Candice Wu 20:10
So, this listener asked me, can you receive help from ancestors or relatives that are still alive? If these relatives are sick, toxic or unhealthy to you and your life? And she further asks, if there's a long pattern of unhealthy bonds, can we receive strength from these people? Can we receive something? Judging them is not useful and cutting relatives from our life is very painful, but sometimes is fundamentally healthy. But how can we create balance? How can we energetically create balance? So, there's a lot of components of this question. First, let's start with the topic of toxic relatives or unhealthy dynamics with ancestors or people in your family. I think we can all say that there is some relationship in our family, or in our family line that is challenging. I have only met a few people that don't find that their family life brings them a bit of challenge. So, as you listen in to this episode, well, let's open up. Do you have any relatives, whether that's your parents, your siblings, or anyone in your family line that challenges you, that you feel heartache with, or tension, or perhaps you're angry with or feel sad about?

Candice Wu 21:43
Just take a moment and notice who comes up for you?

Candice Wu 21:51
Are there people in your family line that you wish would be different?

Candice Wu 22:00
If you've cut your family out, are there people in your present life, bosses, managers, co-workers, friends, acquaintances? Are there any people in your present-day life that remind you of a family member or a dynamic in your family?

Candice Wu 22:28
I find that the inner imprint of a relationship dynamic, especially if it was an early relationship, meaning one that you had in your early life, perhaps that's with a sibling, even a friend or a parent or caretaker. The imprints of those relationships mirror elsewhere in other relationships with people, with money and abundance, with even objects and things that hold meaning, or situations. It's somewhere those dynamics get mirrored. And some psychology theories call it a social microcosm that your social world is a microcosm of your family world.

Candice Wu 23:20
So, the question is, can you receive support help or strength from the people that you feel like they're unhealthy and our family line? Or that we even call toxic? That it's so stressful and very hard to interact with them? Or perhaps they are mentally ill or create a dynamic that is very hard to interact with?

Candice Wu 23:51
From a family constellations perspective, the answer is yes. At least in my experience, and from what I've seen, but that's not always the case. But the first thought I have to this question, as far as the outer life, the real-life outer relationship is that sometimes having distance is the most loving thing. You can love someone at a distance, you can be at a distance and actually have a better relationship than you would up close. And that amount of distance just varies for each kind of relationship. Ultimately, if we are loving ourselves, and if we've healed up any wounds that are caused, or rooted in this relationship, then we may be able to see this person very clearly. And we can see what we would receive from them, what we can receive them from them and what we do receive. We can feel into what's deeper than the human experience, perhaps their soul or spirit, and feel the love that's actually way, way deep, deep, deep down. With some people, that's harder to see than others, but deep down, we are bonded with some version of pure love. And it just depends on how many layers of distortion are on top of that, distortion by the human mind and ego and pain.

Candice Wu 25:31
But when we look at the soul of let's say, our parent, or grandparent or whoever it is that we're struggling with, can we find the part of them that actually is offering us some strength or love or gift of some sort that comes forward that we can feel through them in that relationship? The answer would vary, I would think. But this is something that I've worked very hard with, with my father, my mother at some point, although now our real-life relationship is so much better and great. But there were times where I had to look for the love that was deeper than I could feel in the human form. And with my father, we are very much at a distance and can love each other now. But when we get up close for too long, sometimes old, old fit parts of us come up and we can butt heads a little bit. But when I look to him now and feel what's deeper, I can feel a lot of resource, a lot of logical smarts, a lot of financial smarts, a lot of love.

Candice Wu 27:03
I used to wish that my father was different. I used to wish that certain parts of my family were different, even beyond my father. And what I realized is when I wish that some people are different than I have expectations of them, that there is something that I depend on them to give me. And that's not to say, Oh, stop doing that, although you might tell yourself that, but it's an indicator of where my heart and my soul wants to learn a more expansive love for myself. There's a gap, of which I'm asking someone else for my own need to be filled. And that may be there because in childhood I really needed someone else to fulfill a certain kind of safety or love. I depended, and we depended on others when we're children. But if you're an adult now and you're listening into this, perhaps it's time to see if you don't already that the things that we desire from other people, especially our family members. These pieces of us that still wish, I just wish so and so would be nicer. I just wish they would do X, Y, and Z or be different. That's just an indicator of where we need to fill in the gaps for ourself. What part of us wants them to be different? What does that part of us need?

Candice Wu 28:36
And so it's about learning to relate to ourselves differently, learning about the reactions that we have, and what parts of us are perhaps stuck in time still wanting x y&z from our parents or from our siblings or from whoever it is in our family.

Candice Wu 28:55
That's not to say that our family members don't have their own issues, or that they are not certain ways, sometimes it's helpful to name that. Sometimes it's helpful to recognize where our parents or where our family members are emotionally stuck, where their fears are, or their insecurities, and to have some compassion for that. And what I mean is to be able to recognize that so that you can emotionally distance yourself a bit, and also see that you might be in that same reactive place, if you were them. But it's not to stop there and just let compassion be the end answer that can only go so far. And if that's all you need, then great.

Candice Wu 29:44
But for a lot of people, we need something more, we need to process our own reactions to our family members, we need to move through those feelings that got stuck there, too. So if we've had experiences with certain family members that have been wounding or hurtful or unsafe emotionally or physically, whether that's in the past, or up to now, we need to move through those emotions and physical experiences, as well as any meanings or belief sets that come out of that, to help ourselves move forward. We can't just always logic our way through. And for some people they can, but for most of us, it's held in the body, it's a visceral experience, especially when it pertains to a younger experience. So the second part to this listeners question was, can we cut the luggage or emotional luggage or the luggage and the relationship of the family member and me using compassion and understanding of their behaviors, I believe that recognizing where someone else is, is incredibly helpful, but not to use that as a weapon.

Candice Wu 30:56
But as a way to see more clearly give you the distance, so that you can look at your own emotional wound or what's there for you. So it requires both, it's not helpful only to just say, oh, okay, so and so is just having the experience of being a younger child, they're emotionally stuck at, I don't know, eight years old, because x y&z happened to them. That can be incredibly helpful, and it can go a long way. And it can be this indicator that this experience didn't start with them. And what I mean is, it can be a repeated ancestral experience, an intergenerational experience that has reiterated itself down the line a cycle. But feeling through any pain, feelings or sensations you have is the deeper process that can give true freedom from the luggage, so to say. The freedom that gives rise to compassion from a natural place, and having the right kind of distance or closeness that's appropriate in the real-life relationship. It gives you a sense of what's true and right for you right now and the ability to feel clarity and neutrality within the experience and do what's right for you.

Candice Wu 32:26
So, ultimately, this visceral reaction in your own body is what wants to be processed. And a lot of times that can include a body experience, or the physiology of trauma, the body experience that goes along with something that was overwhelming to the system. So, this is about you. And that's not meant to be a way to blame yourself, but a way to say, Oh, this is where my power and empowerment is and taking responsibility for what my wounds are, and where my reactions are and what that tells me about what wants to complete itself in my history. What once tending to in my heart or soul. And that's true power to shift the dependency off of the family member that we're struggling with, to shift the expectation off of them, and to turn within ourselves to heal the wound that is there.

Candice Wu 33:32
So, we go inward, and we work with the inner relationship with ourselves, and how we see the world around us how we see the people around us as part of that. That's like Shadow Work. We have projections and judgments of other people outside of us. But really, that's telling us something about ourselves, it opens up into where a wound may be for us and the way we protect yourself with that judgment.

Candice Wu 34:03
So, let's process what that is for us. Let's look at it with some compassion and gentleness. So, processing through that can mean sensing into your ancestry and noticing where the patterns existed and how you're part of that. Or to notice, where are the losses and traumas in the ancestry that perhaps you're connected with. Family constellations are one of those powerful ways that I've experienced doing this. And it's not about analyzing these losses and experiences, it's about feeling through them. And with a group experience of constellations, you can witness other people supporting you and doing that by standing and as a representative for your relatives. And seeing the dynamic play out before your very eyes. There is an episode about family constellations, just a very introductory one that I did very early on in the podcast. And it's episode five. So you can find that at CandiceWu.com/EPfive.

Candice Wu 35:17
That explains a bit of family constellations, and how that might work. But just to talk about the philosophy today, when we experience challenging relationships with our family members, these are openings to the pain of the ancestry. It likely didn't start between you and this person, or between two people that you find have a lot of tension, or anger within each other, or some sort of dynamic that you don't like to see, it probably goes farther back. And how did that come to be? What was the catalyst or the root of this issue are dynamic? And what I typically see and what constellation facilitators typically see is that somewhere along the way, the feeling of love, which is underneath everything was so big, that when something happened, it was so painful, and that painful experience didn't get integrated.

Candice Wu 36:30
So, maybe that was losing a child or losing a parent early, or even later in life. Maybe that was an illness that happened or an accident. And it was so painful to bear that the family couldn't look at it. Maybe it was war, and how terror terrible war can be. And to not talk about it, because it's hard to talk about. Those experiences that were silenced or not talked about are usually the ones that get passed down. And that can open up to a way of coping and a way of protecting that down the line down the ancestry, or in our own lives becomes dysfunctional. It feels like it's hurting us. It feels like self-sabotage. But somewhere behind that, before this became dysfunctional, was a protective, a protection that came from this dysfunction. It worked at some point to protect and to allow people to survive, and then it just continued on.

Candice Wu 37:42
So, when we have tension between family members or a challenging relationship in a family, it is that opening to the story and the soul of the ancestry, the story that wants to be acknowledged and heard and healed. These can be healed by you. With family constellations, you can do it in a group, you can do it one on one. It's something that I facilitate with people. And it's incredibly powerful and a very personal experience. You're not doing it with your family members, you're not bringing in the person you have a challenge with and working it out by talking. But we're working with the felt sense in the body, the emotions, and what didn't get to be seen. And when we do that, personally, it has a reverberating effect on the real people in our lives on people who are dead. And the ones alive because we're so unconsciously connected, energetically connected. That our wholeness will we have an aspect of ourselves that we've healed or apart we're integrating into more expansiveness and more wholeness, that affects everyone around us.

Candice Wu 39:05
So, earlier, when I talked about seeing the soul of somebody in our lives that is challenging, seeing the love that's underneath, whatever toxicity we see on the surface, that's part of constellations, because there is a deeper knowing that the spirit that's beyond the physical and human body, if we can access that we can receive gifts that are not the sick, toxic or unhealthy part. It is much harder to do that in our real life, if that person is a toxic part of our life, and depending on who they are in our life of their parents or someone else. And but if we can integrate that for ourselves that there is that part of them that we can receive love from, love being a free witness and warmth coming through, then we can build for ourselves something that is beyond that toxicity we see in human form. We can feel into that love, and not expect the human person to have to do that for us, because we have the resource to feel it within us.

Candice Wu 40:26
This may sound hard to do, I don't know how it sounds to you, it may sound like what is Candice talking about. If you have the interest to go deeper with this, it is one really powerful way to resource yourself and feel the love from within by using your image of someone you know, a relative feeling into the love in them, so that you can feel that for yourself.

Candice Wu 40:58
Another way to work with your inner world around your experience with challenging relationships and your family is to work with your inner parts. What I mean is that certain parts of you probably get activated when something happens with a family member, when something stresses you out or makes you irritated or you have a reaction.

Candice Wu 41:27
When we feel that let's look at what part of us is experiencing that reaction. Is that part of us a younger version of ourselves? Is it just an angry part of us? If we can connect with that part of ourselves, then we ourselves can give this part of us what we need in order to heal. What we need that we wish someone else in our family would do or give to us, whether that's their attention, or some acknowledgment or validation or some kind of apology or anything. We can look towards our self and give that to that wounded part of our self. I did a whole podcast on that as well and it's about Parts Work, working with the parts of ourselves and embracing all the parts. You can find that podcast at CandiceWU.com/parts. And there are experientials that go along with that to support you in healing certain parts of yourself, that may come up. And if they come up with family members, this is a perfect place to learn more about yourself.

Candice Wu 42:45
Which leads me to the last thing I want to mention today, that if we have challenging experiences with family, that gives us a very deep and powerful opportunity to look at how we love, how we love ourselves and each other because we probably learned and picked up some ways of loving that are tangled up with pain, or intermingled and paired with other things that make it complicated, make us confused about what is love.

Candice Wu 43:25
I believe that love is pure attention and witness. It's where your energy is directed, and being present with what's there and what is felt this is love. So, it can be the moment of having a connection with someone, even a stranger, the feeling that feels like you're really seeing yourself or seeing the other person, and likely both come with recognition and allowing what's truly there. Something that feels real and genuine.

Candice Wu 43:58
What I find with families and with people who have experienced some challenging early childhood experiences, or traumas, or really hard dynamics with their family members, is that love gets tied up with abuse or hurt. And we learn that loving means to stay when pain is there or to accept certain bad treatment because it shows that you love them. Love can be tied up with being silent in order to show someone else you love them, not telling them the truth of how you feel because it's uncomfortable for them, or for you. Love can be tied up with all sorts of loyalty to abuses and two things that hurt.

Candice Wu 45:04
This is the third part to this listeners question. She says my doubt is that a family system can have accepted and integrated abuses as love, loyalty to abuses as a sign of love. And it can go through ancestors that will carry on this experience, unconsciously.

Candice Wu 45:22
This is a whole other podcast that I will, that I would like to talk about very soon. But just for today, I want to just acknowledge how love can be tangled up with so much. In my own family, in order to love, I had to keep my emotions to myself. And it would be selfish if I spoke to uncomfortable emotions. And this was the way to love and respect your elders and your family members. When we have challenging relationships in our family system, when there are abuses or when there are ways that emotional wounding happens in a relationship, we often get confused about what love is, and what we have to endure in order to or what we have to accept in relationships because there is love there somewhere. But then there's this hurt that comes with it. And part of what I believe our work here as humans is to sort that out. And to learn what love truly is and what it isn't. And to learn how to truly love ourselves as we grow older.

Candice Wu 46:42
Our family issues, our challenging family relationships give us the most prime and raw and powerful, like loaded material for us to learn where we need to love ourselves more and to learn how to love ourselves. These are just giant lessons in self-love. And what I mean is that we need to learn about where our hurt was, so that we can learn a greater love than before.

Candice Wu 47:13
And when we have certain experiences in our family, that show us giant wounds, and they don't help us heal those wounds. If they do, then that's wonderful. But when they don't, we are left with this gaping hole in our heart or in our body and part of our work with ourselves is to heal those parts of ourselves up, to feel through those emotions that we need to feel through, and to give ourselves the love the attention, the validation and support that perhaps we didn't get before, which is going to give us a fuller way to be there for ourselves, to truly love and accept all of who we are. And to let those past wounds and experiences move through so that we don't identify with those parts of ourselves as who we are, but that there's this just part of this fluid experience that we had, and that give us those opportunities to learn how to love ourselves.

Candice Wu 48:32
And that loving of ourselves now helps us grow our awareness. It helps us expand and feel more of the human experience, and it shows us how to be in the body, but also how to see beyond human form. It shows us how to look into spirit, look into our souls, look into what we deeply want, and what we, what wounds we came in with it this life, what beliefs we came in with, and this feeling into and sorting out what is love and what isn't as part of what we can do for ourselves and the next generations.

Candice Wu 49:17
So, I want to mention a couple of other podcasts that you can tune into if this is an interesting topic for you. As I mentioned earlier, there's a podcast about Parts Work and that's at CandiceWu.com/parts. There's a blog post on showing your inner child, your present-day self. So, showing your younger version of yourself, your adult self so that you can bring healing and sync up the past to the present. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/healingyourinnerchild. I had a friend, Nick Warburg, come on the show and I talked about family constellations and also working with a challenging family relationship. So, you can tune into his experiential at CandiceWu.com/Nick. Also, there are a couple of experientials about healing the past and moving forward from challenging relationships and that is at CandiceWu.com/pastisover.

Candice Wu 50:27
This episode supports you in looking at what parts of you are stuck in time at completing a chapter of the past and releasing and closing a relationship. And also, as I mentioned earlier, the family constellations intro episode is that CandiceWu.com/EPfive. Stay tuned this week for three healing experientials that our family constellations inspired as well as somatically and energetically inspired, and also bring self-forgiveness. So, the first one is going to be healing the ancestry and giving the ancestry, imagining that your ancestry has what it needs in order to give to you what you need. So, seeing what was needed in the ancestry, and letting it trickle down to you. The second one is turning towards self-love when you experience a challenging family relationship or with around a family relationship that is difficult, and working with that inner child in you or the part of you that feels of reaction. The third experiential is about self-forgiveness around dependency and where you feel dependent on someone else, or co-dependent on someone else to give you what you need. And having that self-forgiveness around the judgment that comes with it.

Candice Wu 52:03
So, stay tuned to all of these and if you've subscribed to my podcast, you'll see them come out this week, and if not go to my website at CandiceWu.com/podcast and you can find those there. This is podcast 61, so you can also go to CandiceWu.com/EP61.

Candice Wu 52:24
I'm so glad you tuned in today. Let's end today with a little bit of tuning into yourself and just seeing where your heart is now.

Candice Wu 52:34
So, take a few breaths and breathe into your heart, into your body.

Candice Wu 52:45
Watch your breath, be natural.

Candice Wu 52:51
And take this moment just for you to sense into how your heart is doing right now.

Candice Wu 53:01
Notice how you feel right now after this conversation if any parts of you want attention now, or any new ideas have come into your being.

Candice Wu 53:21
And just acknowledge anything that's coming up.

Candice Wu 53:31
And I invite you to give yourself the attention you need this week, reach out for support if you need to a friend, a healer, a therapist, coach or me. I'm always happy to talk with anyone that wants to connect. And if you've never done a 20-minute free consultation with me, I invite you to do that there's no pressure to continue on or have sessions after that. It's purely a place to check in to see if there are next steps that you'd like for yourself to explore what you really desire. And if there are referrals that I can offer you or if it feels like a really good fit to work together, we can go from there.

Candice Wu 54:17
And as we conclude today, I invite you to sign up for my bi-monthly newsletter at CandiceWu.com/Embody. This is where you can get self-love tips, receive updates, get all the info about the podcasts and retreats and workshops that come up as well as the online classes. And I want to thank you so much for being here, and I wish for you that you have all the love in the world for yourself as you go through your day as you go through the week, and in your whole life to let that inspire you to be truly you as fiercely and as much as you want to in your life.

Candice Wu 55:09
Thanks so much for joining me today and I look forward to seeing you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 55:17
So, as we shift gears here, we'll end with a little music so that you can shift into your day today or wind down.

Introduction

This healing experiential is to support you in healing the ancestry from which you came, so that you can feel more wholeness, love, freedom, and peace in your life.

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.

Challenging Family Relationships

If you want to touch into the conversation around toxic family relationships and dynamics, unhealthy ancestors, and how do we find resource strength or love from the ancestry when there are those toxic relationships, as well as conversation about love and sorting out what love is and isn’t, and how to love yourself in a deeper way, using the challenges of the family ancestry as a tool for your own healing, your own growth, and self-knowing, you can find that episode at CandiceWu.com/ep61.

So in this guided experience, I’ll invite you to sense into, look at, and feel in your body, what happens when you invite your ancestry into the picture, which gives the unconscious imprint of what’s already happening within your inner dynamics and within your outer dynamics in your life. So we’re just sensing into what’s already there and imagining what was needed or what is needed in your family ancestry, in the line of your family, for you to feel how you want to feel. So whatever is needed for you to feel and receive more love, or the good things out of the lineage, we will work with that today.

We Are Ever Evolving

Before we begin, I want to remind all of us including myself that working with the ancestry, with what’s here today, is just one piece of things that’s here right now and each day we live, each movement forward or movement backward, each part of our lives that unfolds can unfold another piece of what wants to be healed or acknowledged that day.

So just because something shows up today, doesn’t mean that tomorrow, nothing will show up or that you’ve completed everything. It’s a continual process of healing, as many people say, healing is like peeling off layers of an onion and finding even deeper and deeper layers.

So as we begin, we honor what wants to show up today, what wants to emerge, and what wants to be seen.

Let’s Begin

So I invite you now to find a space where you can move around and I invite you to stand up and as you do, just ground yourself into your feet.

Take a couple of breaths and just let go of the day so far.

Let go of your attention on anything that’s pulling you from the outside and turn towards yourself with great power and love and attention.

Simply feeling your breath in and out.

Feel how your body stands.

Feel what feels effortless and easeful. What feels strenuous?

Notice what places in your body feel relaxed or calm, open or spacious.

Notice what places you’re holding, or there’s tension, tightness, or any other sensation you feel from the inside out.

Check-in with your heart and notice any sensations around the heart, sense any emotion in the whole body.

Notice if your body stands still, or moves in any way, just allow it to be completely natural, with whatever it wants to show up with.

Without any judgment, observe what’s happening inside, taking it all in as information and with this curiosity and openness.

Bring to Mind a Challenging Relationship

I invite you now to bring to mind a challenging family relationship that you have.

This may be a toxic dynamic, as some people like to call it or a very tough relationship, or one that brings you heartache or that you’ve cut off from.

This also may be one where you receive some good things out of the relationship, but also have some challenging aspects.

I invite you to picture this person in front of you, at whatever distance feels okay for you right now.

For some, it helps to have a visual place marker for the other person and you can use an object like a pillow, or take some shoes and set them down where their feet are, or any object that can just hold that place to represent the other person, the family member that you’d like to explore with.

And begin to notice what you see, how you see this person, how they are to you.

And notice how you’re feeling now that this person is in the picture, is in this energetic space that you’re looking at.

Feel your emotions now.

Allow anything that you’re feeling to come up and be noticed.

Feel if anything has changed inside your body, your temperature, the sensations inside.

Notice all the parts of your body and what’s going on in each part of the body.

Where do your eyes want to look or not look?

Are you feeling warmth towards this person or some other emotion or sensation?

Perceive whatever there is to perceive inside and out and notice now if your body wants to move, or if it’s in the right place, if it wants to turn around, sit down, lie down. Allow your body to move in whatever way it wants to and follow this movement.

And notice you in relation to this person in your family.

Stay with this moment and feel whatever is happening right now without trying to analyze it or think about what’s going on. Just feel, see, and sense.

Open the Need

Now I invite you to open to whatever is needed in this situation between you and this person.

Perhaps that’s another person or people as resource, maybe their parents, or your parents, caretakers or anyone else that would be loving or supportive here, animals, or perhaps it’s an energy that’s needed. The energy of love or the energy of pure witness and compassion or maybe it’s even more specific.

For example, perhaps the other person, in your sense, may need something, like someone to hug them and have their back so they can be present with you. Perhaps you need that behind you or with you. Perhaps it’s firmness and boundaries and someone to be clear, fair, and firm. Perhaps it’s someone to be strong and protective and speak up in a certain way.

Whatever is needed in this picture, for you, for the relationship or for the other person, imagine that happening right now.

Picture it happening and feel into the experience of if this were to happen, noticing how you feel, and what begins to shift, or change.

Allow any emotions to be felt. Notice what you notice.

Let what’s needed in this picture, fill up the space and allow just the right thing to be received by all that are connected to this dynamic.

Don’t worry if you’re not sure what’s needed. Just imagine, if you knew the exact right thing, just the right thing that’s needed or desired, what would that be?

Just allow your imagination, the pictures in your mind to show you, watch your breath flow, just the way it is and allow things to evolve as you reset to feeling this moment and this moment.

Tracking what’s happening now inside of yourself and in your image of what’s happening, and if there are any movements, follow those movements in your body.

Follow how your body wants to be and what it feels like and where.

Notice how the other person is in your mind’s eye in this experience.

Track what you sense, what you see, and let what’s needed, continue to fill the space and transform and change.

Whatever the dynamic is, in however it needs or wants to change, in what wants to unfold now, feel free to stay with it and continue to let things shift or move, or be felt without any pressure for things to be different, without expectation of what might show up.

And if there’s anything else that’s needed in this picture, for you, for the other person, feel free to picture that now or sense into, what would be just right? And what it would be like if you had just that right thing?

Mental Snapshot and Closing

Take a mental snapshot of what’s going on inside and in this relationship dynamic right now, sense what you see right now.

Feel free to pause the experience here if you need more time and if you’re ready to close the experience for now

Thank yourself for feeling into this challenging relationship, or giving yourself loving attention, for healing and for whatever wants to show itself.

And thank the other person for showing up here.

If it feels right, you can say out loud or in your mind to this person:

I’m so sorry. We had to do it this way.

If those words aren’t right, feel free to shift them or tweak them how it feels right.

And for some experiences and dynamics, it feels right to say:

I take responsibility for my part in this difficult relationship. And I leave you with your responsibility.

If that feels right for you, go ahead and feel into that.

When you feel ready, let yourself create a distance between you and this person that feels just right, whether that’s close or far away.

Send that gratitude to yourself and this other person again and just release your attention on this person.

Imagine that their energy is freed up back to where they belong. Feel into your own body. Feel your feet.

Notice how your body is now, just you, just your breath.

And here we’ll close this experience. Just looking around your space, on yourself come out of it and back to real-time.

Stretch or move your body in any way that feels right and send some appreciation to yourself for doing this challenging work with yourself and giving this love and attention.

Ending

Thanks so much for practicing with me today and feel free to reach out if you need any support or want to learn more about Family Constellations work or Somatic Healing and energetic healing.

And take a look at the other healing experiences related to this episode around challenging family relationships. That’s at CandiceWu.com/ep61.

There are a couple of other healing experiences to follow so stay tuned for those, and I look forward to seeing you next time on the Embody Podcast.

I’ll leave you with just a little music that you can shift gears into your life.

Thanks so much and see you again.

Introduction

This healing experiential will support you in healing the wounds of whatever comes up for you within a toxic or challenging family relationship. It uses working with the parts of you as well as somatic and energetic healing.

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.

Healing Series

This experiential is part of a series of healing experiences all connecting up with the introductory podcast around challenging relationships in the family, toxic, dynamics within a family and how to receive, how to experience love, and sort out what is love and what isn’t love within a family ancestry. You can find the full episode about this at CandiceWu.com/ep61.

So, in this healing experience, we’re going to look at what is it that is your reaction, when you’re encountering a challenging or toxic family relationship dynamic.

With whatever person that you get triggered by, meaning, whatever person you’re having reactions with or you feel upset with, angry with hurt by, within your family dynamic, and of course, you can do this with someone outside of your family, that’s fine as well, but just focusing on the family and selecting someone that you have a challenging relationship with.

And we’re going to look deeper at what part of you wants healing, what part of you is calling for a deeper healing that gives you a new kind of love from within yourself rather than expecting the person, the human outer relationship to give you what you need.

So, in this, we’re going to do some parts work, some inner child work as some people call it. Some people work with IFS, that’s Internal Family Systems, and some people work with voice dialogue, which is the language that I use often, and all of that is to look within and say, Which part of me is having this reaction, and what can I do to heal this part of me and give to this part of me what it really wants so that I can depend on myself that I can have this healing from within, and that I can feel more whole and at peace and loving of myself?

Now, this doesn’t mean you don’t necessarily get support from others. I absolutely recommend having the support you need for your healing, and it can be incredibly helpful to have somebody that is so compassionate and holding a loving space, and I hope that this healing experience gives you some experience of that so you can begin your healing process or take it to another level for yourself, but often having a real person to hold that vibration with and to co-regulate with is extremely helpful.

And if they can also guide you through this process, it can go a lot deeper, but this turning towards yourself and giving yourself what you need from within is a process of shifting your younger child dependencies on somebody in your family or in your life to yourself so that younger part of you can develop, heal, and be fulfilled from within. So, getting support for that is an excellent idea. It’s just getting different support than what your younger child would want or did want in the past.

Let’s Begin

So, if you’re ready to jump into this with me, go ahead and find a space for yourself to sit or lie down comfortably, anything that makes you feel like you’re supporting your body. And if it feels comfortable, close your eyes or look down.

And as you breathe, just notice how you’re doing at the moment, what is this experience of being in your body, right here and now.

And I invite you to surround yourself and your space, and our connection here in this experience, surrounded with love, the kind of energy that can hold any experience, any thought, emotion, impulse or image, holding it with compassion, curiosity, truth, and lightness.

And now I invite you to bring to mind a challenging family relationship that you have, and if you just choose not to do a family relationship, that’s okay, you can choose any relationship, and notice your reaction to this person or the situation that’s challenging for you.

Feel free to bring your awareness to the moment that was upsetting for you, that stands out in your mind or the kind of dynamic that brings up a reaction in you, and at any time, if this becomes overwhelming, I encourage you to take a break and pause, look around and just come out of it.

Supporting Your Body in Overwhelm

Sometimes, this work can be very overwhelming or bring up a lot of emotions, and it’s good to take those breaks and to do this in small doses so that your nervous system and your body can digest everything.

And now, as you feel into this upsetting experience or dynamic with this person, notice how your body reacts.

Notice where you feel any emotion inside. Where is that in your body?

Notice any part of your body that constricts or protects, guards or holds tension. Where’s the body armor?

Notice any part of you that feels open and released, any emotions that are moving.

Now, as you feel your inner reaction, allow any emotions to come up, just accepting and allowing what’s here, and tracking what’s happening, and if this reaction could be a separate part of you, imagine what that separate part of you would look like and one thing you can visualize is that this visceral experience and this set of reactions, visually just pulls out of your body and comes forward in front of you so that you can see it.

And as you see it or imagine it, notice how this part of you is, notice how they’re feeling.

Notice this Part of You

Notice if this is you, a part of you or your inner child, a younger version of you, and if it is how young or old is this part of you?

What age would you guess this part is or what age do you know this part is? If you’re unsure, just follow your guess, and you might feel some sort of resonance if you’ve guessed the right age. Don’t try to analyze it or make sense of it. Just feel how familiar this feeling feels, and to what age this feeling feels familiar to.

And ask this part of you or this part that’s having the reaction, “What do you need?” And listen or sense or see without any filter or judgment. Ask from the heart, from the space that wants and needs love and support or expression, the basic needs of our heart. “What do you need?”

Whatever this part of you says, see if you can imagine exactly what it needs, happening right now, and notice what happens as you receive that, as this part of you receives that just the right thing it needs.

You might sense into, what is this part of you wish, would have happened or what happened now?

And feel what it gives you, what it gives this part of you to have that now, if they could have that now, if you could imagine this part of you receiving just what they need or what they wish for.

Notice any emotions that are coming through especially in reaction to this challenging family relationship or dynamic, and continue to give them anything they need in relation to this challenging experience, and this challenging relationship that’s outside of you. You, your adult self, with many more resources than you had as a child, with safety and with the ability to love and care.

You know best for what your younger self needs or for what this part of you that’s reacting might need to hold this space for whatever is needed. If they need affectionate touch or supportive touch. If they need some words of validation or assurance presence, let them know you’re right here with them.

Let them know that they are safe with you, and hold the space for any emotions or reactions they have, even if they don’t like that at first.

And just stay with yourself, stay with this part of you.

Continue to feel any emotions or sensations you notice.

Continue to be in the moment of giving this part of you whatever they need from you, any sort of validation, acknowledgment or empathy of what they’re going through.

Let them experience your recognition of this.

Take A Break if Needed, Pulse Check

Feel free to stay with us for as long as you’d like to.

If you’re ready to take a break or complete the experience for right now, you can always come back later and check in on your younger self or this part of you that’s having the reaction, but for now, just go ahead and ask one more time if there’s anything else that’s needed or if they want to share anything with you.

And you can do a little pulse check to just see and gauge the shift or what’s happened here within the challenging family relationship that you originally started with so you can picture again, that situation that brought up a reaction in you or triggered you in some way, and notice how the part of you that you’ve been giving attention to.

Notice how this part of you feels now, notice how your reaction is now.

Is there any difference? Has it stayed the same?

Is there any space or different kind of awareness within you?

Closing

And now, just release it all.

Let yourself come back to your body in this moment.

Feel free to give some supportive self-touch to your body, just touching your heart or giving yourself a hug, squeezing your arms, your belly, your legs, anything that feels good and reminds your body and you that you’re here.

And let’s close with putting our palms together or palms on top of your chest and heart, a couple of deep breaths just filling yourself with gratitude and love, and we’ll close this experience today, for now.

End

And we’ll just end with a little bit of music so that you can transition into the next part of your day or just deepen into rest.

As you thank yourself for practicing, I thank you as well for joining me, and feel free to check out the other experiences related to this episode at CandiceWu.com/ep61, and I look forward to seeing you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Introduction

This healing experience is to support you in self-forgiveness around any dependency or codependency relationships, whether that’s in your family or in your life.

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.

Self-Forgiveness

I first worked with self — forgiveness with a healing coach of mine, Charmayne Kilcup, and she had learned this technique from Robert Waterman, the deepest level of self-forgiveness we can give ourselves has to do with forgiving ourselves for the judgment that we have, about anything we’ve done, about any belief set that we have held that’s caused us to act in all sorts of ways, but any meaning that we’ve made that causes a suffering of any choices that we’ve made and ways of being that we are.

What I find about forgiveness around our judgments of ourselves is that it frees us up to be able to truly accept what has happened, with a great amount of love and responsibility.

It frees us to be able to accept the pain that we feel or that the beliefs that we have of ourselves so that we can see them and bring light into them, bring love into them so that they can release naturally.

What I experienced with self-forgiveness though is that when you say these words, that your body needs to be ready, feeling safe and open in order to release the energy and the emotions around it so that you can have a true shift.

If your body is very blocked or you’re overwhelmed or you’re feeling emotionally unsafe and unsupported, you may or may not know that about yourself, but maybe nothing happens when you say these words, that can mean two things — the words aren’t right, and they’re not hitting the spot or that your body is not prepared to move the feelings and energies out of your body. It’s holding on tightly or surviving in some way with a numbness or just not prepared with the channels open so that it can move.

So, I really recommend an embodied healing process to support you, and you can find a lot of different healing experientials on my podcast at CandiceWu.com/podcast. There are plenty of people that are working cinematically and energetically that can support you, and this, today, is just a taste of self-forgiveness work, and it’s in conjunction with the episode around toxic family relationships, challenging relationships, and ones where we expect or wish others to do something differently, where we have a reaction and we want something.

When we have the reaction about somebody else of judgment of them or wishing that they were different, it’s typically that we have some sort of inner reaction that is hard to manage so we put it outside of ourselves instead.

So, with self-forgiveness, it’s about going to a deeper level of spiritual responsibility where nobody else is responsible for you, your worth, your enoughness, your value, except for you. You’re already worthy and valuable. You’re already existing here, and it’s about coming to that natural knowing of this being who you are.

We build layers upon layers of distorted beliefs about ourselves, meanings of the world, ways of being that connect up with our wounding experiences, rules that we put on ourselves, rules that we put on others so that we can feel okay in the world, so that we can feel loved, lovable or we can feel understood, we can feel valuable and worthy.

A lot of those fears are just hidden underneath as belief sets that actually live through us that are almost like programs that live out in the world. So, self-forgiveness is about forgiving yourself for the judgment you have about all of these fears, beliefs, and meetings.

So, today, I want to give just a taste of that self-forgiveness work around the judgments that we hold of ourselves in our reactions and the beliefs, fears, and actions that we’ve taken. Particularly, in this case, we’re looking at family relationships, ones, where we’ve felt, are stressful for us, ones where we wish this person would be different so that we could feel okay, and sometimes we disguise this need of ours, this dependency or codependency that we have into, well, it would be better for them. So, be careful of that, and notice what relationships in your family, in your ancestry or in your life are this way for you.

So, the tricky thing with this work is that it’s very particular to you and the patterns that have come about in your life, and the belief sets that you’ve taken on or came in with or believe inside of your body, in your energy.

Your energy is a collection of these belief sets and the accumulation of the experiences that confirm it, and it’s very specific to each individual what the words will be that hit that sweet spot of what exactly is the truth of your belief set here.

So, what I offer today, will be more generic, and will give the opening for you to explore what belief sets will be hitting that sweet spot for you.

Let’s Begin

So, let’s begin by sitting in a comfortable place.

Support your body in any way with pillows underneath your hips or a blanket.

Feel free to close your eyes if you’d like to or looked down, and let yourself go inward.

Place your hands on your heart.

Just breathe into your heart, into your chest.

We’ll start this process by bringing to mind one family relationship, one person you have a challenging relationship within your family line, in your lineage.

Notice if there’s something you want or wish to have from this person.

Maybe you wish to have an apology, maybe you wish that they could see you with more attention, perhaps understand you in a very clear way, hold space for your sadness or recognize something that you wish they would recognize, sense into anything you wish from this person.

Forgiveness Statements to Experiment With

So, in these statements, feel free to say them out loud if you’d like to, I recommend that because it lets the energy move a little bit more, and also, replace the words this person, with whoever it is that you’re focusing on right now.

So, again, these words may not fit exactly right to you, you can try them out loud and breathe and see how they feel or if something comes to you that’s different, feel free to try that for yourself.

First, notice how your body’s feeling, and let the breath flow all the way down to your hips, into your legs.

Let your awareness be in your whole body.

Now, try the words:

I forgive myself for judging myself, for all the times and dimensions where I depended on this person to show me my worth.

Feel free to replace that last part with anything that fits:

• …where I depended on this person to apologize in order to feel okay.
• or …where I depended on this person to know that I existed.

The words, again, are: – I forgive myself for judging myself, for all the times and places, where I depended on this person in order to know my value. – OR …where I dependent on this person in order to be seen. – So, fill in the blanks for yourself here.

You may not know the right words right now, that’s okay. If you need to pause here and repeat, go ahead and do so.

If none of these words resonate, you can try this next statement:

• I forgive myself for judging myself, for believing that in order to belong I need this person to…
• and fill in the blank.

You can replace the words “in order to belong” with anything.

• i.e. In order to feel loved, I need this person to___
• In order to feel worthy, I need this person to___
• In order to feel good enough. I need this person to___

So, see what just strikes some emotion in you or a sense of, “Uh, that’s it.”

And I’ll repeat the words again.

• I forgive myself for judging myself for believing that in order to feel that I need this person to___
• Fill in the blanks with what feels fitting for you.

Feel free to say this out loud as I suggested or say it in your mind if you’re not comfortable.

• I forgive myself for judging myself for believing that in order to feel I need this person to___.

And take a couple of breaths after you say it.

Feel free to feel into what it is that you really wanted from them, what it is that you depend on them for?

And try the statement again, if you need to.

Breathe

The breath is really important because it allows the energy and the emotions to flow, and again, as I said earlier, if nothing’s happening, you might just check-in, see if you’re stuck, your emotions are blocked or your body’s overwhelmed or see if this, these words just don’t resonate for you, and whether it’s more about finding just the right pattern that’s here, just the right words that fit with you about what your beliefs are here that are getting triggered and what emotions are coming up, what that part of your heart really aches for from this person.

So, again, the words are:

I forgive myself for judging myself for believing that in order to feel xy&z (i.e. worthy, loved, good enough, seen, valuable, etc.), that I need this person to___ and fill in those blanks.

Release and Stretch

So, as you’re ready, just release all that and start to move your body and stretch, begin to open the eyes, and just check in with how your heart and your body is doing right now.

And again, feel free to reach out for support to anyone that would be supportive of you in this process of healing on your journey, whether that’s a coach, healer, therapist.

I would love to talk with you about this process if you’re interested in going a little deeper, and with my clients, I tend to sense these beliefs and where their energies are blocked, and the words just come to me sometimes about what just hits the spot and we collaborate together to reveal what it is that needs, but the heart wants to shine a light on. If none of these words fit for you at all, you might just try, “I forgive myself for judging myself.” And just let that be felt.

Close

So, we’ll close today with a little bit of music so that you can transition.

Let your body come out of this and back into your day.

Feel free to rest, take a breather and nourish yourself with some good sound here.

Thanks so much for practicing with me, and I look forward to connecting with you again on the Embody Podcast.