Candice Wu 0:00

In this podcast, we have Nick Werber back on the show, yay! In this episode, we talk all about intention setting and the process that brings in our lives, what it means and how to move through, as well as where our family systems intentions, our ancestries’ intentions come in, and how to respect those.

Candice Wu 0:22

Find out if Nick and I are the black sheep of our families and whether there’s a black sheep in you.

Candice Wu 0:30

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

Candice Wu 1:06

The podcast is supported by so many of you out there listening and people who either quietly donate some money or give their feedback and their encouragement. Thank you all so much. And if you’d like to support the podcast in a more specific way, there are two options right now that are very interesting. You can sign up for a periodic personal meditation that I record personally for you based on your intentions and based on my intuition of what you’re sharing and what might be needed. And that can be a one time experience, an mp3 that I send to you, or a gift to somebody, or by subscription where you get that periodically.

Candice Wu 1:53

Or, if you’re interested in something that has more connection and contact with me, you can join my Embodied Group healing call. These very small groups offer a compassionate and embodied soul support space for anything you’re going through in life. So if you’d like to learn more about that, feel free to go to my website at CandiceWu.com/support.

Candice Wu 2:19

Following this episode will be a special recording by Michael Picucci of an adaptation of Bert Hellinger’s writing. So Michael Picucci is Nick Werber’s mentor and friend and fellow healer. And he speaks about him in the first episode that we have together that we recorded together last year and in this episode, so you can hear a little bit more about Michael Picucci and Bert Hellinger is the founder of Family Constellations.

Candice Wu 2:52

Both of these beautiful people and healers passed away last year and so what a lovely experience to have this on the podcast for all of you to experience. And, Nick was such a close person to Michael, that he’s offered to share this on the podcast and knows that Michael would really love for others to experience it. The offering in this meditation is called consenting and it’s lovely to inspire, bringing consent to people around you, situations, agreeing to what’s happening, and what your human experience is, such that it brings new possibilities or allows ease and brings the next unfolding. So be sure to tune into that later this week or following this episode, depending on when you tune in. And without further ado, here is Nick.

Candice Wu 3:58

Not really sure how to jump in Nick, this is your second time on the podcast. It’s so cool to have you here.

Nick Werber 4:04

Yeah, I’m really excited to be back again. I know, you know, since last week did that first podcast I’ve gotten, it’s surprising. It’s people, you know, every so often. It’s like, “Oh, I found you through, you know, Candice Wu and I love Candice.” So, I’m really excited to be back because, yeah, a lot of people love that first one, at least they tell me, so.

Candice Wu 4:27

Yeah, I get a lot of great feedback from it, too. And people really have enjoyed what you have to say, and enjoyed our conversation, and some people could just feel like that we were friends. And that’s so true. I just so appreciate you, Nick.

Candice Wu 4:43

And the first podcast we did was maybe about a year and a half ago. And for those of you who haven’t listened to it, or maybe want to review, it’s at Candicewu/nick and it’s also on your website. Right, Nick?

Nick Werber 5:02

True. I think it is. Yeah.

Candice Wu 5:04

At nwerber.com. And, Nick, can you just tell the listeners out there a little bit about who you are and what you do, just as a refresher?

Nick Werber 5:17

Sure.

Nick Werber 5:19

So, I call myself, you know, the label that I use as an integrative coach and a healer. And really, what that means to me is that I just, I pull in many different modalities into my work. And some of the big ones are Family Constellations work, which is all about, you know, this work of how so much of what we’re facing and experiencing didn’t start with us. You know that the context that we live in, has a huge effect on who we are so that can apply to family. It can also apply to our nation and our culture as well as our, actually our ancestral history of these things that long tail of history actually has a real effect on who we are.

Nick Werber 6:08

And then for me, all my work is really on this, founded on this bedrock of somatic trauma work, specifically a modality called focalizing. Which is, you know, really just the best practices I think of any time you’re working with trauma, that overwhelm is the enemy and you might hear this just in the way that I speak and the way I approach things is that just I think the best healing is done in this very stable, gentle space where people can feel safe and, you know, in addition to that, I also have a bunch of training and hypnosis.

Nick Werber 6:49

Sometimes the way I say it is that you know, the work is, all of it is focused on, you know, we have these very deep, unconscious parts of ourselves, as far as we know, we might only use somewhere between 1 to 3% of our brain and consciously, I’m sorry, only 1 –3 percent of our mind is conscious. And so all the work I do is really about working with the unconscious and how God affects so much of what we’re experiencing.

Candice Wu 7:22

Beautiful.

Candice Wu 7:24

And, Nick, I think I told you this before, but someone recently told me that you and I could have been brother and sister in a past life or siblings. And that just makes so much sense to me on many levels, which I’m not going to get into now, totally, but that just feels true in some ways, we’re like siblings in this healing, embodied work, and that’s part of what I so value about your work, how much of the experience in the process that you bring forward, that I love as well, and do my own versions of. But I also deeply value the way that you use your language and words to key into very important and relevant topics that we’re all dealing with in some fashion that get people, it like creeps in sideways in new ways, fresh, very refreshing way of speaking and writing that leave an echo in me. So thank you.

Nick Werber 8:49

Yeah, it’s an addition to the practice. I’m absolutely a writer at heart and love writing about the subject and I love that we were brother and sister in a past life. I believe it. I’m sorry, I interrupted you maybe in that past life I, you know, as an older brother, maybe I spoke over you I don’t know.

Candice Wu 9:12

Well, what I was told specifically was that in the past life, I always lived in your shadow. And I felt like, I could never like, come out of the shadow next to you. And so I was struggling with the feelings of like not being good enough in relation to you and always trying to win at that game but never winning.

Nick Werber 9:39

Oh God, it is sad.

Candice Wu 9:41

It is sad.

Nick Werber 9:45

I’m sorry.

Candice Wu 9:46

No. Yeah, you better be.

Nick Werber 9:49

Yeah.

Candice Wu 9:52

And just for all of you listening out there, the reason this came up was that, I, and I think I told you, Nick, I would read your posts and then I would just get, I would feel so, like, jealous to the point of feeling bad about myself, not the kind of jealousy that says, “ooh, this is exciting, this challenges me to grow,” which is probably more where I am at this point. But when I was getting triggered by your wonderful post, I was like, I’m not enough and like, now I need to be doing what Nick’s doing and I need to write like that and I could hear myself and I was like, “Why? Why am I? Why?”

Candice Wu 10:41

So it really helps to bring that into the light and for the emotions to move around it. But yeah, stop speaking over me, Nick. You hardly do that. No. You were just saying before we started recording that this is a totally different experience already and I’d love for you to share why with everyone.

Nick Werber 11:11

Well, last time, basically, I think we spent the first half an hour after we connected just working on why the microphone was so loud. And I, you know, I live in New York City and so there’s always some kind of construction or weirdness. Like, even this call I, you know, this podcast, I purposely asked you to do earlier in the afternoon, because when it gets close to two or three, there’s going to be school buses outside my window, you know, backing up and beeping and all that.

Candice Wu 11:39

The beeping yup. And you’ve got your mic from back in the day when you used to record music.

Nick Werber 11:46

That’s true. Yes. Yeah. I have the microphone that NPR uses and it’s really beautiful, and I pulled it out of the closet and it was dusty and there was something sitting on it so the phone is all deformed, but it sounds good.

Nick Werber 12:05

Yeah.

Candice Wu 12:08

Well, I made a big mistake, Nick, when you emailed me last night about some of the topics you wanted to talk about today on the show, I read it at 10 pm, your email and I, and then I couldn’t sleep for like four hours. So it’s really all your fault. I mean, that I read the email. Yeah, it was like 10 pm and I’m reading your email, and you’re bringing up the topics that you’re interested in, so I’ll just say some of them because I think they’re fabulous and that is what kept me up until like, two in the morning because I was just like thinking about these topics and your thoughts about them and so excited to hear from you about intention and the intersection of family and family history in regards to our intention, or how they weave in, what we reject and what we resist and how that impacts us and stays with us. You wanted to talk about the beautiful mystery and meaning behind who were born to in this life and what that we’re alive perspective can look like versus a dead perspective. And, then a little bit about narcissists versus empath relationships and black sheep, and also this misnomer of letting go of something or letting, letting things go. So, yes, obviously.

Nick Werber 13:42

When you put it like that, now it’s like, “Whoa, that’s a lot!”

Candice Wu 13:45

Right? I was like, boom, my head was like, Okay, yeah, I get it. Also, it was like getting back in the game of life after the holidays and I kind of just went into a cave.

Candice Wu 14:00

So before we jump in, you know, I was wondering, some of the words I wrote down for myself yesterday when I was just gathering myself trying to come back into my regular sort of schedule, as regular as that can be. But some of the words I wrote down were cave, because that was emerging cave and emerging out of the cave, surrender, the need for trust, clarity, but also not knowing at the same time, and then beauty and quiet. And I wonder, Nick, what words are popping up for you in your experience of life at the moment?

Nick Werber 14:41

I think flow is one, shame is another, connection, and I think the word, it’s almost like, expanse comes up because I feel, you know, I, as you know, Candice, I got married in September this past year and there’s, you know, so much an event like that kind of focuses you in such a powerful way. And, you know, right afterward it’s kind of holiday season comes through and now I feel like there’s this sort of expanse so now what do I do with the rest of my life?

Candice Wu 15:24

With the rest of your life? Yeah.

Candice Wu 15:26

It’s like, that’s a huge expanse. Yeah, I can imagine, right? Like having a wedding, you said focuses you so much. It’s like all your energies seem to culminate to that moment and all the people in your life at least from what I, you know what I saw of your wedding, and then coming into this I don’t know, quiet space or open space.

Nick Werber 15:26

Exactly.

Nick Werber 16:01

It’s open, and it’s playful. It’s like, I choose my adventure now. And I mean, I chose my adventure before too, but you choose it and then everything becomes very singularly focused. I feel now there’s a little bit more playfulness with each day, I can choose my adventure. And it doesn’t always have to relate to a particular goal either.

Candice Wu 16:25

Sounds really nice. I like that.

Nick Werber 16:28

Yeah, it is nice.

Candice Wu 16:29

Yeah. And then you said shame, connection. And there’s one other word I just forgot the first word.

Nick Werber 16:39

I think flow.

Candice Wu 16:40

Flow. That’s right. Yeah, do you want to say any more about this before we tune into the topics we have for today?

Nick Werber 16:48

You know, I feel like they’re going to come through in whatever we talk about. Because you know, I think speaking like this is a co-creative process. and whatever is living within us in this moment comes through. I’m borrowing a little bit from writers that I like and I recently a little bit of a tangent but I’ve been watching a little bit of Mad Men again and then interested in Matthew Weiner and you know, he basically said it’s every episode is what he was experiencing, you know when he wrote it. I think that’s true for most creation.

Candice Wu 17:31

Yeah, that makes sense. Where the energy comes through somewhere. So yeah, speaking of, oh, what were you going to say?

Nick Werber 17:41

I was going to say, I think I feel a sense that I’d like to talk about intention a little bit because it is, you know, new year’s time and it’s just so, I think it’s top of mind for so many people right now.

Candice Wu 17:54

Yeah, I was feeling that too. Yeah, did you create an intention for the year or for this time frame?

Nick Werber 18:01

I created several intentions and, you know, I found it actually reminded me how much I love intention that for me when I’m just working, kind of getting through my day doing tasks on a, you know, an hourly or a weekly basis, you know, whatever that kind of goal-line is, I start to lose track of meaning. You know, I feel like I’m kind of floating and I’m not sure where I’m going or, you know, maybe people relate to this where you just kind of realized, like, why am I doing this actually. And intention, I think, sitting down and actually writing down you know, here’s what I think is a life well spent, my time well spent and it’s not that I didn’t create a bucket list it was, you know, my intentions are a little bit more short term than that, but there’s just something very powerful to collecting yourself and in writing down, you know, here’s what I think is a good use of my time, here’s what I want to give to other people, here’s what I want to receive, and I couldn’t believe how much better I felt when I just did that simple process.

Candice Wu 19:27

Yeah, it’s, to me that’s actually such a playful process too, it’s like, I get this chance to gather myself and see what does feel meaningful and to clarify it. And I have felt that power of not just the writing down, but for me, I can use visioning like, seeing it in my mind and kind of carving out that vision in my mind that it’s not always so cut and dry like, I’m going to look at a vision of what I desire, what I’m looking forward into. But it’s this feeling sense that comes with seeing bits and pieces of where things are going for me and, or where I’d like them to go and it’s really fun. It’s like playing with consciousness, playing with myself.

Nick Werber 20:22

And I think when I hear you say that, you’re getting at something that I think is very important about intention, which is that intention is really supported when we find ways of moving beyond our just goal setting, kind of thinking mind. And so visioning is one way, when I do it, intention setting, I really tap into my body awareness quite a bit. And so it’s, you know, I think we have so much intelligence that is beyond our task-oriented mind and that intelligence is so important when it comes to, I think finding intentions that are valuable to us and valuable to the world and, you know, knowing, like you said, seeing what’s emerging ahead of you.

Candice Wu 21:14

I love that and when you say you use your body awareness and your body intelligence, what exactly do you do?

Nick Werber 21:24

So I actually have been playing with and this is what I used and this most recent intention setting process, a very specific way of working with body awareness, which is that I sit and I write the intentions, one intention per piece of paper. And then I actually put them out on the floor, and then stand on each one and embody the intention. And I’m sure this will sound very familiar to Candice in terms of Family Constellation process. You just step into the intention. Just close your eyes, tune in, and I do this with my clients as well. And it’s amazing how quickly just you get that little sense of Ooh, that’s, you know, it’s not the next five years, it’s actually in the next ten years I’d like to receive this or, maybe, you know, you start to suddenly get really strong senses of the wording of what you wrote. And, if you just connect with your body a little bit, you can feel, am I feeling contracted here? Am I feeling expanded here? Does it feel like a yes, does it feel like a no. And so that’s, I like things that get you up off the couch and connecting with things. Not only, you know, in your mind’s eye, but also in a physical way.

Candice Wu 22:45

Yeah, it brings more of us into the picture, alive into the experience. I love that.

Nick Werber 22:56

You know, this is, I have to give a little bit of a nod to one of my teachers, a person named Dr. Michael Pecucci, but he would say at this time, in a conversation like this, that we should set an intention for this conversation.

Candice Wu 23:14

Okay. We are.

Nick Werber 23:17

And I just thought that came to me it’s maybe a good idea.

Candice Wu 23:22

Okay. Yeah, why don’t we take a moment and feel that? Yeah.

Nick Werber 23:41

That’s funny that you said feeling because it definitely feels like a feeling to me actually.

Candice Wu 23:47

What are you getting?

Nick Werber 23:51

So, to me, the intention, and just for kind of our listeners, so there’s the intention that we might think we want to have at the end. But there’s a level of intention that’s kind of, it’s like, what already is there, asking to be connected to.

Nick Werber 24:08

And so that’s what the second part is what I’m speaking to when I say this, that for me, when I just think about the intention for this conversation, there is a fullness in my body. It feels like this feeling that I get when I’m like, wow, I listened to something that I’m going to be thinking about for a couple days and processing and referencing and it’s kind of that feeling of, I’m glad I spent time doing that.

Candice Wu 24:36

I love what you said, like what is already there and asking to be connected to and I find that when I tune in that way and listen, it’s a more aligned intention, like it emerges, it reveals itself. It’s already living. And yeah, I love the feeling that you’re bringing up the fullness, the feeling of the listening to something here.

Candice Wu 25:15

I got the words, being extremely honest with myself and outward, outwardly. And then also playing with the ideas that the concepts that we have put on the table like playing with you, Nick. And I think in your email to me about these topics you said, feel free to disagree or feel free to, you know, argue with this or something. And I was like, Yeah, I’m going to, let’s see what happens. And I could you know, we, just the idea of play and curiosity and what emerges out of that sort of challenge to on both sides, I think, but as more of a collaborative play.

Nick Werber 26:12

It’s, you know, it’s serendipitous almost that you know, honest and being outward, it’s funny, I, my partner Jen was sitting in our kitchen and I was talking about this podcast a little bit. I said to her that I think I’m going to be a little edgier this time. And I’m just going to say what I feel and, you know, maybe it might turn some people off. I don’t know.

Candice Wu 26:37

Bring it on.

Nick Werber 26:41

Yeah exactly.

Candice Wu 26:42

Yeah, I want to play with that, the edginess? Cool. So do we have our intention? Or was that just more, was it? I didn’t know if I heard a specific intention from you or just a feeling you’d like to experience. Is that? Am I getting it right?

Nick Werber 27:02

It was a little bit nebulous. I think the intention is to share something, both between you and I, that provides a sense of fullness provides a sense of, you know, a gift that you can sit with and play with, even, you know, for a time after this conversation and then I’m including the third player in the room, you know, the audience that maybe they can experience something that they can play with and sit with them, digest for a few days that gives them a sense of fullness as well.

Candice Wu 27:43

Yes, thank you for clarifying that. That’s great.

Candice Wu 27:48

And just inviting people to play with, play with these topics and disagree with us, or find where there’s a new opening and you know, I’m just saying that out loud because that also helps me do that. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Michael Picucci as well.

Nick Werber 28:11

Yeah.

Candice Wu 28:14

And just honoring him.

Nick Werber 28:19

He’s a major inspiration for everything I do. Funny, you know, on his website, when he was alive, it would, you know, you’d see Ph.D. psychologist but if you met him, he was very just quick to laugh with a very raspy voice, flamboyant gay man, who was a shaman and an energy worker, and you know, I think of him almost as the archetype of the Joker. You know, the one that kind of laughs and tells jokes but if you really think about what he’s saying deeply it’s, maybe the most honest, most real person in the room and a lot of ways. So there’s my little nod to Michael. Thank you, Michael.

Candice Wu 29:12

I wish I had the opportunity to meet him in person.

Candice Wu 29:18

So, intention, what comes up as you play with the concept or the idea of intention?

Nick Werber 29:34

What’s sitting with me about intention? You know, I have this community of healers and intuitive people that I love that are around me and both connected to them online and through some of the workshop spaces and communities here in Brooklyn that I’m in and everyone’s talking about intention. And I think the thing that for me, you know, I don’t think it’s touched on enough that I’d love. I think it’s helpful to acknowledge that, you know, intention is a process.

Nick Werber 30:11

When we set intentions, It’s not just that we write something down, and then we put it away in a shelf. And, you know, we hope sometime a year from now it’s going to end up on our doorstep.

Nick Werber 30:26

For me, and in my experience, and from my clients experience, it’s an active process. And one of the clearest ways that it’s very, really active is that I believe the moment you set an intention, what you’re really doing is saying, I’m ready to see what’s been standing in the way all along.

Nick Werber 30:48

You know, when you say, I want to find a relationship or I want to be making more money, it’s incredible how you know in the next few weeks or months people suddenly are playing in that shadow we stuff, those barriers that have been around for a really long time, that are directly related to these topics and, and I see that actually as a positive, it’s kind of, you know, whatever you want to call it. And, you know, universal intelligence or just the way the universe works is that it puts, it brings a barrier too and then it’s like, okay, now here’s your work. Now bring in your resources, you know who’s maybe, it’s a therapist or healer that you work with or just being a part of your community. You know, you have to resource yourself and actually go through it.

Nick Werber 31:44

For Christmas, I just got to my partner purchase me a sweater that says, “the only way around is through”

Candice Wu 31:54

Nice reminder…

Nick Werber 31:56

Yes, and that’s what this is. He set the intention to see the barrier and I think people don’t realize that happens. And so when they find the barriers, you know, when they come up against suddenly like, it just feels so hopeless and there’s so much doubt or I feel so much fear to go out and do that thing that I want to do, you start to, they might start to think, oh, maybe that’s a sign that it’s not really meant for me or you know, this isn’t going to happen or it’s not the right time. And it’s like no, like that, there it is, like you are now being given the exact wall you have to chip away at and your intentions on the other side of it.

Nick Werber 32:39

So I think what I want to, if there’s one thing people take away from this conversation, it’s that, to see intention as a process and to not be discouraged by the barriers, because that’s exactly what that processes, I believe meant to do is to bring up the barriers

Candice Wu 33:00

Yeah, I’m ready to see what’s been standing in the way all along. I love the words you expressed about that, it’s just such a nice statement. And we don’t always think about that exact position or approach when we’re creating something or like listening or creating something we want for ourselves.

Candice Wu 33:26

And I just think it’s such an important thing what you’re bringing up because, yes, so often, I’ve seen it in myself and clients everywhere. We find the resistance, the thing that scares us the most about it, and then we turn around and think, well, maybe that’s just not where we’re supposed to go because it’s scary or because it’s going to bring us some discomfort or let us look at something that we have not wanted to look at perhaps, and I see exactly what you’re saying too, in the way that barrier comes up and says, okay, you want this, you know, you want what’s behind this. You need this to come along. This barrier is the place where you’ve resisted or avoided, there’s an energy here and when you transmute this, when you transform or look through, go through it, as you say, instead of around it, that energy will come with you and support you in the end if you make it through. And we need it, we need it to go forward into the next thing. We need that expansiveness because that’s what we wanted to begin with. It’s going to bring us more. Thank you for bringing that forward.

Nick Werber 34:55

It’s almost like to give yourself credit. You know?

Candice Wu 34:58

Yes.

Nick Werber 34:59

There’s a reason you might not be making a million dollars a year, it’s because it takes hard, there’s a lot, there’s hard work, there are barriers there, there’s a lot to bust through. Now, if you come from a poor family, you’re leaving behind whole generations of a certain way of life. You know, it’s if you want that, if you want that intention, if you want to connect to that intention, there are some barriers you have to bust through and you know, that takes work. And so it makes sense that you maybe hadn’t connected to it yet. Again, you need the energy, you need the resources to be able to do that.

Candice Wu 35:41

Yeah, that just made me think, well, maybe that’s why people goal set instead of intention set? Because, I mean, maybe it also has a crossover, you know, even when we goal set there’s something that’s going to come up… but for people out there that are like FUI to intentions, like, I don’t want to deal with intentions or I’m not doing that. I’m giving yourself credit. Yeah, that it can be scary to set an intention because of the wave of things that might come in succession after that, on the pathway towards what you’re looking at.

Nick Werber 36:23

Exactly. And that’s why, you know, it’s also beautiful that if you set a really big intention and you’re not ready for it, you can stop.

Candice Wu 36:31

Yeah.

Nick Werber 36:32

You know?

Candice Wu 36:32

Yeah.

Nick Werber 36:32

You can take a pause.

Candice Wu 36:35

Yeah, I just love this. I have this image in my mind of a child, you know, I mean, I’ve been there standing on the edge of like a step and feeling like I want to jump down three steps. You know, I’ve done two. I’m going to jump three steps now. And I have this, I guess, maybe this is sort of archetypal image of an adult or someone older, saying just do it, go, just go. And like kind pushing you to go with their energy and with their encouragement. But there’s something incredibly beautiful about standing there on the edge and finding from within your own sense of I’m ready, or I’m ready to take the jump, and I don’t know what it’s going to bring doesn’t mean I’m ready and this is going to be easy. But that sort of leaning forward and being like, oh, maybe not, and kind of leaning back and playing at that edge, instead of just bypassing that and jumping without some sort of internal choice.

Candice Wu 37:52

And a friend mentioned to me this video, which I still haven’t seen, but I’ve been meaning to and I’ll link it to our show notes. I think this artist just recorded people at a diving board like high dive, and they were doing that, they would come to the edge. And some people would turn around and just never come back. And some people would like to stand there for an hour or something or like a period of time and go forward and back and maybe make the dive but it wasn’t really even about the dive I think. It’s just the process of us being human and being in that experience.

Nick Werber 38:36

And I think that I actually have seen that diving board video. So funny. YouTube is sort of my little guilty pleasure when I have downtime, so I’ve found it somehow. But to follow that metaphor a little bit, you know, I find with intention setting, we set an intention, or I set an intention and then it becomes, you know, okay, I started to receive it, you know, for instance, I had intentions about working with more and more people in group settings. And so I’m getting these group workshops are coming forward, they’re doing really well. And then it’s like, I recently, in the past year I was off or, in the past few months, I got the opportunity to work into this retreat in Mexico, which I’m sure we’ll talk a little bit more about, but you know, you can hit that moment of suddenly, Whoo, it’s like, it’s a much, it’s a bigger thing, it’s going to be more of a commitment, more of a commitment to the people coming. And then suddenly, it’s like the diving board’s too high. I don’t know about this one.

Candice Wu 39:44

Yeah, I asked way more of you.

Nick Werber 39:47

And I think those are, that’s really common that you get on a roll and it’s like, where’s your, what’s your tolerance and I’m not saying, you know, push through everything either. You know, I respect that tolerance level, that there’s, you know, that’s part of this work. That’s one of the barriers is fear, you know that you might come up against the fear, the fear of success, the fear of, you know, maybe speaking in front of a large audience or, you know, whatever your intentions include.

Candice Wu 40:18

Yeah, and this kind of loops me back to the beginning when you said that we can just get on a roll, or we can be in motion and wonder why we’re doing it or is this what we even wanted? And I think that that’s really challenging, it can be a really challenging place when the bigger thing comes, the bigger diving board or whatever it is, and you’re on the roll of the intention that you once had set. And there’s that place of, Okay, now it’s, I think that diving board is too high or this is really scary. This is a lot and it’s asking a lot of me. And when we feel into that place, it can sometimes mean this is no longer what I wanted or this is, wait, where have I gone? Is this what I wanted? And is it what I want now? And distinguishing that from the fear of the expansion and capacity, what it means to step forward and continue on? That can be a tricky place. Do you find that?

Nick Werber 41:34

Absolutely. When I hear you talk about that, I think we’re really connecting in some way to just the human condition, which is, you know, in some ways, we’re walking down a cave and there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, maybe, but we just have no idea what’s there and what’s ahead of us and there’s a lot of mystery so, absolutely, and, you know, there’s, I think this is also why it’s sometimes very attractive to listen to someone that says they know, that they, you know, they know the answers because we’re, you know, in a sea of mystery all the time being alive in this world, you know, and this doesn’t get you out of that process, but for me, I do think, you know, there’s kind of three ways that I think about working with intention.

Nick Werber 42:34

One is the setting it process, like the planting the seed, writing it down, which can be a really exciting and kind of expansive piece. Then, there’s what we’ve talked about, which is meeting the barriers, which is, can be so shocking how different it feels, it’s like, it was so expansive in the beginning now it’s so friction-filled, and that can kind of discourage people but there’s a piece in between and maybe all around, all of it, where I do think it’s nice to have some sort of practice where you’re connecting to your intentions on a regular basis. And you don’t even have to do it every day. But for me that writing it down and stepping on the sheets of paper, I do that once every other week with my intentions, to just see, you know, how am I feeling now? Is there still kind of a change or anything that needs to be shifted here? How am I sitting with it, just to kind of keep allowing my own intuition, my own body awareness to keep teaching me and showing me new things. But if you know even the most trained somatic healers that spend all their time with body awareness, which I really spend a lot of my time leaning on my body awareness even with my clients, that’s how a lot of my intuition comes through. You know, the body. It speaks in feeling, it’s not in words. And you know, even that, I think is a metaphor. It’s like, so much of the way life speaks to us is it’s the exception is when it’s extremely direct and says, go do this. But a lot of it is, you know, there are messages that are kind of in a gray area and it’s up to us to feel, what feels right for us.

Candice Wu 44:27

I didn’t really set intentions this year.

Nick Werber 44:38

You’re screwed. The way you said it was like you dropped a bomb.

Candice Wu 44:52

All this talk about intentions, and well, I think that as I’m reflecting on myself, that there just been different ways that I’ve worked with the process of intention and setting it and some processes feel more epic than others. And there are times in my life where it feels that it needs a very, almost like a ceremony to set an intention and to create the space for it. And other times of my life, it feels like a quieter process that’s, maybe this is also more along with the evolution of my own capacity and healing. That it feels almost like a part of me, a part of each moment, in fact, that if I had to put words as you eloquently said, you know, this is a feeling, this is an experience. But if I had to put words into the process, it might be something like, where am I right now and what am I feeling? And what do I want to lean into right now in the capacity of who I am like, the state of being that I’m in?

Candice Wu 46:17

And so the words I’d give it right now as far as intention, maybe it’s just going back to what I said in the beginning, surrender, and trust. And I’m not sure if that’s the intention, or if that’s just how I want to be right now, surrendering. And it’s very moment to moment.

Candice Wu 46:38

And I found that in the last couple of months, my astrologer said to me that it was Uranus and the chaos of Uranus, that it brings this unpredictability and changing your mind moment to moment even. What was in this moment can be totally the opposite the next or the next day or the next week, and I have felt that very much in the last couple of months. And so when I have planned too far ahead, for me, it will reveal itself. So I just felt like I’m just not going to waste my time doing that. And that’s very particular to me and my process. I don’t know if other people are relating to that. Maybe if you have the same birth chart as I do. But, surrendering to the moment and going deeper though, not just like to the topical, satisfaction of the moment, but something deeper of, a deeper movement towards the next movement. So in a way, it’s very unknown. It’s just this movement to the next. So yeah, there’s my confession about intention.

Nick Werber 48:00

Candice, I feel what you’re sharing about the way you’re working with intention just makes me think, you know, that is so you, and I think that’s one of the things I really admire about you is the way that you just freefall with spontaneity in so many areas of your life, and that’s brave, that’s awesome, and so it makes sense to me that you’d be saying that and I think in some ways, maybe we represent two different poles around on the subject, and people can take kind of little bits from either of us, because for me, it’s the spontaneity and the free fall. I get kind of lost and the planning really focuses me in this way that increases my effectiveness and, but of course, there are things that are lost.

Candice Wu 48:55

It’s beautiful.

Nick Werber 48:56

And you know, and spontaneity is, so who wouldn’t benefit from embracing a little bit more spontaneity, and I think you really are like a role model for that in a beautiful way.

Candice Wu 49:08

Thank you, Nick. It’s not that I don’t get lost sometimes too, though. But I also, I guess I’m okay with getting a little lost. Maybe that’s the thing.

Nick Werber 49:23

You have a high tolerance for it, maybe it’s a way of saying it.

Candice Wu 49:28

Maybe, but yes, I think you’re right. You know, there’s just a time for all different kinds of tools, and I think the processes you’re bringing up, they’re incredibly powerful, and they do work at times, work I mean, they will open things up and they will, if you follow through, if or I guess I should only speak for myself: when I feel through the resistance, I’ve landed in exactly where I want it to be in a way, but in a place, which I couldn’t even fathom! And on the other hand, I know it somewhere in my body, that’s what I wanted.

Candice Wu 50:10

So yeah, I think just putting up a menu of how we can all approach this thing called human experience, it’s really great. But let’s talk about family and lineage; and what you’re thinking about in terms of how that intersects with intention.

Nick Werber 50:38

Sure. So you know, for people that might not know, it’s really the focus of my practice is around how family and family history are at the root of so much of the barriers that we experience and you know, the way when I speak to this, I’m not really speaking to it from this kind of, maybe like a clinical perspective at it for me, it’s really at this kind of soul level that we’re born to these, this mother and father, you know we were, we might have had older siblings or younger siblings, or no siblings at all, and that becomes this very powerful template that follows us around. You know, the roles that we’ve played with our family, the types of people we were surrounded by, you know, I think I said an example is: if you had a parent that was a narcissist, and one of them was distant; and then… did you try to befriend the narcissist or did you reject them; and try to ally with the distant parent or, you know, the permutations are infinite. But it becomes this bedrock by which so much of what we’ve become, or how we emerge out of our family is so much a reflection, either an acceptance or rejection of where we come from, and why this, I think is relevant into intentions is, I think so many of us are probably aware on some level that our family has intentions too, and that those intentions were pushed on us. You know, and so the maybe the simplest one would be, go be a doctor, be a lawyer, but there it goes deeper than that, and then I’m actually very fortunate, and you know, and it’s actually complicated. When you don’t get this, it’s also confusing, too. But I would lean towards saying, I’m fortunate that I came from a family that the main message I got was just all we want for you is to be happy. I mean, that’s like I am very very thankful that I got that message, and there was not a push to be a certain thing. I didn’t have to be something.

Candice Wu 53:10

Wow!

Nick Werber 53:10

However —

Candice Wu 53:12

Yeah.

Nick Werber 53:13

Yeah, not to be glossed over.

Candice Wu 53:17

Yeah.

Nick Werber 53:17

I mean, that’s a huge deal. Yeah, it’s a big deal.

Candice Wu 53:22

But guess what’s the shadow side of it? What?

Nick Werber 53:24

Completely, yeah, completely shaped my life that I received that message.

Candice Wu 53:29

Yes.

Nick Werber 53:33

One of the shadow sides is, if you’re just supposed to be happy all the time, if that’s the goal, then you’re going to be falling short all the time.

Candice Wu 53:42

Yeah, I wonder —

Nick Werber 53:44

-the whole happiness at all times.

Candice Wu 53:45

All we want for you to is to be happy. Yeah, I didn’t know if it was literally happy, you know, and the pressure to be happy to come with that or if that just meant it was open, but it’s, yeah, sounding like that would create a lot of, we’re much more than just happy in our experience of life.

Nick Werber 54:12

And there’s depression in my family, which is, so obviously what that is a reaction.

Candice Wu 54:18

Now when you say that, yes.

Nick Werber 54:23

And so, you know, so then it becomes, well, what if I don’t, you know, it’s a little bit confusing. So it’s you know, it’s funny how these messages no matter what they are, even if it’s so simple and sounding so innocent… we just want you to be happy. It still gets confusing.

Candice Wu 54:41

And in a way, we could just turn it around and say, and maybe this is where you’re going but seeing that maybe the words were, are more, maybe the words are all I want us to be happy, coming from wherever that came from, but impressed upon you, it’s a totally different experience.

Nick Werber 55:09

Well, Candice, I think you’re nailing it right now, and we’re about to go very deep into my own, you know, constellation, but it’s yes, absolutely. It is, there’s a funny way and I think this can be extrapolated that the desires that our family have for us are so much, obviously a desire to have it, reflect on them in a certain way, and you know, absolutely the message of I just want you to be happy was, if you’re happy, then I can be happy and you know, maybe that will fix things for me and funny enough, me and my sibling were not very happy.

Candice Wu 55:56

That’s just a strange thing.

Candice Wu 56:03

Yeah.

Nick Werber 56:05

Yeah, that has to be earned, and it’s a process but I want to kind of bring it back slightly of our family has intentions for us, sometimes they’re very concrete, we’d like you to do a certain job, we’d like to be a certain type of person, and so when we’re setting our own intentions, that has to be included in our awareness about, you know, what is our intentions and what is our the intentions that we’re carrying, actually for someone else in a way, you know, if I’m happy then if I can do that, then finally maybe my mom can be happy.

Nick Werber 56:43

And so there’s a piece of that, that needs to be respected, and there’s also another part of intentions that I think is really important which is that anytime we change in a way that we are leaving this fear of where we come from, you know, you want to make a million dollars, and no one in your family ever did that, you are breaking through a barrier there that you know you are you’re part of this family consciousness and you’re leaving it, and so there is an element of guilt that comes with that. Whether you’re aware of it or not, that sometimes when we connect to our intentions and we’re creating change in our life, there’s a part of it where we are leaving something behind, you know, that’s change and in any form, you know, to connect to something new, you’re always in a way leaving something behind, and so that factors into our intention setting to —

Candice Wu 57:50

Absolutely!

Nick Werber 57:51

-where we come from, you know, what we emerged in within our family.

Candice Wu 57:58

Now, I feel this conversation is flowing two ways in my mind at the moment. Looking at our own intentions, and I love what you said about respecting the pieces that may connect with an inheritance or with other people in our life, or maybe given to us just respecting that versus you saying, no, that’s a bad intention then right? To give that up or change that, but just respecting, just honoring it, is just such a lovely approach you’re bringing.

Nick Werber 58:41

Well, and maybe the way of adding to that would be to say, you know, just because our parents wanted something for us, doesn’t mean it’s bad, and this starts to get into, you know, after working with many different people of different family backgrounds, different cultural backgrounds, you know, I feel very strongly that the family we’re born into is this incredible, it’s a wealth of information, it’s a huge teacher for all of us, and even if you disagree with the pieces of what they shared with you, there’s, you know, they still taught you how to tie your shoes and maybe cook. You know, there’s a million basic things that come across from a family that, you know, doesn’t matter how much you reject or how much you disagree with you. You’ve taken from them.

Candice Wu 59:46

Yeah. Absolutely, and there’s so much conversation in the world event, intention setting about getting to the why or understanding why you’re choosing that, and I think that’s very important and it’s part of what you’re bringing forward in this conversation, is what are the pieces that influence, the reason that you want this or you know, whether that’s personal family or other, any other systems you’re part of or if you believe in past lives, but here we’re speaking about family, and when you said just because parents wanted something for us, doesn’t mean it’s bad. I feel if we also get to the why of like, they wanted to be a doctor say, or they wanted you to just stay in the lines and not make a mess and not stick out, that there’s a why underneath that, and we can really get to that essential love that they wanted for us, and I can’t assume that’s for many people are all people, but it’s in my experience that lives underneath it, that there’s something underneath in the undercurrent of that more topical message that people have gotten, that says, well, we really just wanted you to be safe or we really just wanted you to be yourself or be happy or which, as we’re talking about comes with all sorts of stuff, but there’s something else underneath it that we can look at as well.

Nick Werber 1:01:41

You’re totally right, and I think safety is especially the big word and that brings up for me, you know, something that Suzi said, Suzi Tucker, our shared teacher, about this subject. You know, Suzi had been talking about the just ancestral component of Jewish culture across the world, and where you know how the history of persecution is affected people today, and you know, one of her, she always says these things are always like an aside, all the best, and then it’s like, whoa, I need to write that down, and what she would say is that in the shadow of the Holocaust and how many people were lost, it’s there’s many, obviously, Jewish families that push their children to become doctors, lawyers, bankers, and she put it, she said, you know, what’s the common thread line between so many of these career paths? It’s that there they are central, they are needed. Your society can’t work without them, and you know, when you think about the genocide, it’s like, how do you become necessary in the world? And I think that’s a really clear example of how ancestral history affects family on a really, you know, the macro affects the micro, but this is happening across all cultures and with all different kinds of histories that the past influences exactly what our mothers are telling us today.

Candice Wu 1:03:31

Absolutely, how do you become necessary in the world? That hits somewhere deep.

Candice Wu 1:03:43

So the thought I was going to say about looking into directions, like looking at the family in the past, and looking at what’s been carried through the generations and how that comes into our intentions and looking forward also in the other direction, well maybe it’s the same, but I had an experience where someone told me if you do want to have children, make sure you don’t do it because of wanting to give your children a different experience than you got, and I was like, yeah, of course, and then I was like, oh yeah, of course. Because actually, the thought that came next was, well, then what would the reason be?

Candice Wu 1:04:34

And there was this part of me that couldn’t think of what would be a good reason. Like, how do I verbalize what would be a good reason? How is it clear enough from the reactions of myself or from the reactions of my ancestry? And that was a little tricky, and what I got too was just for love and experiencing, allowing someone to come into life through me, but that they’re completely free to be however they want to be, and that was really hard to, in some ways, articulate it clear enough, you know, because wanting your child to be happy, there just can be so many shadow sides to that and unknowns unconscious parts. But even what I’m saying, I don’t know if there are some dark, like, unconscious parts, but I guess I’m tangenting a little bit because I also, as you know, Nick, I work with horses and I enjoy time with horses, and yet I struggle all the time with the fact that we keep them behind fences, and we keep them accessible to humans the way we want, but do they want that, and it would be some time as a whole for that to shift, but if we really believed in the freedom of another being, then you know, how do we see, and treat them, and think about that? And so I guess looping back to intention when it comes to bringing life in, maybe that does apply too to the things that we create, that are not just human life or animal life or caretaking for others, but what we’re creating as far as what we’re birthing.

Nick Werber 1:06:38

I think there’s so much metaphor and in birth and creation, and I think in many ways, you know, the creative pursuits are kind of a process, a feminine process and a lot of ways that birthing, that creation, that I really, I do appreciate what you said shared, and I just wanted to acknowledge that I think you are not alone, and I can imagine there are many people listening right now that would resonate with that about having children in order to change, somehow change the way, you know, give them an experience you didn’t have, and there’s a piece of me that just wants to say, I don’t want to, I don’t think it’s totally wrong to come into that, to come into it that way, but I think it’s so important to have the awareness that you know.

Nick Werber 1:07:39

There’s a cartoon about this that I love, they’re kind of these candy hearts, like the ones that we give out on Valentine’s Day, but their characters and one of them just has on the candy heart section, it says we will not let you get fucked up, and then the mother side says: our parents fucked us up, and then the little baby heart just says: “a new kind of fucked up”.

Candice Wu 1:08:00

Oh! I love that! Please send me that. we are going to link that here too.

Nick Werber 1:08:05

It’s the clearest, like you get it immediately.

Candice Wu 1:08:11

Yeah.

Nick Werber 1:08:12

And this is a huge thing, I’m sitting with right now where I am talking about with my partner about, you know, when we might have children and what I’m bringing them into the world, why I’m doing that, what is the intention behind that is a big thing, and I do get wrapped up sometimes and all the things I would do differently, and then I catch myself saying, you know, I actually was raised in a way that I think my parents were very focused on doing it differently, and that is, it has its own shortcomings in a funny way.

Candice Wu 1:08:51

I really appreciate you bringing that up and holding space for that not being wrong, and I do feel that too, and when we think that things like that are wrong or like that we shouldn’t do that, it can compel us, yes to find something different but it can also be a way that we don’t acknowledge, that we actually have those true desires inside of us and the more we put a blanket over that, saying, okay, let’s like, let’s not, let’s resist that and let’s not use that intention. Sometimes that really backfires and it just lives anyway.

Candice Wu 1:09:47

Circling back to the beginning of our conversation, you know, where you said, I think these feelings I’m having are going to emerge no matter what, and there’s such a power to just say acknowledging it, and respecting that and seeing where it has an effect if you can and claiming it. So it has a place instead of just this like, lingering thing somewhere in the unconscious that does pass forward and lives itself out is the little baby heart.

Candice Wu 1:10:29

So do you want to talk about one more topic, Nick? I know we just like laid out so many. So good, but we kind of are leaning into resistance, what we resist persists, but what are you wanting to talk about now?

Nick Werber 1:10:49

You know, I think again, it just all feels like a time of year to touch on these guys, but I would love to talk about the phenomenon of black sheep and fan. Because I think this is the time of year where all that stuff comes right back up and there are so many people that were the black sheep that are, you know, still in recovery from their family gathering or have you know, stayed home and held certain boundaries and, you know, had to suffer watching all the family photos go by on their Facebook feed or whatever; and I just, I think something that is just so important to me is a real respect for the phenomenon of black sheep, how they emerge and that they are such an important part of the evolution of our society and our culture, and so that’s what comes up for me, so then, I’ve, and then now I feel like I just want to put you on the spot. Are you the black sheep Candice, of your family?

Candice Wu 1:11:59

I saw your post that you are not the black sheep. And I was like, am I?

Nick Werber 1:12:04

I know.

Candice Wu 1:12:07

Yeah, that was great by the way. I really appreciate that, so am I the black sheep?

Nick Werber 1:12:13

Yeah, I can speak more to that too, but yes, I was not the black sheep in my family which a lot of people are surprised to hear that. But the spotlight was taken by another, but yeah, so yeah, you said did you say yes, you are —

Candice Wu 1:12:28

I was thinking about it. It depends on how you define black sheep, so would you define it for the people listening and for me?

Nick Werber 1:12:44

That’s a, it’s a great, yeah. You know, I think if the black sheep is characterized by being someone that feels very strongly out of place, sometimes people that feel that the black sheep and their family feel like their parents are their parents, in some way.

Candice Wu 1:13:06

Yeah.

Nick Werber 1:13:06

You know, how could I possibly be their child and they are often the carrier and the target of all the shame of the family. It’s like there’s this sense of, you know, its parents might have a tendency to almost project all their shortcomings on to the child that didn’t do what they told them or wasn’t enough or should have been smarter or different in some way, which by the way, children are always a reflection of their parents and so for a parent to somehow pointed to a child and say you’re the problem is just very short-sided. But so it’s I think it’s yeah, it’s often they feel a certain level of shame, black sheep, as they get older, might spend very little time with their family because they might become kind of tired of it all and I, you know, I think the kind of classic was like television show thing of, you know, family dinner and the black sheep eat the fastest, tries to get out of it, gets away from the table as quickly as possible, barely talks, if they do, it’s very brief. You know, kind of, it’s almost like black sheep I think have to be very protective of themselves because they can be such target within families.

Candice Wu 1:14:48

Yes, that was me. That’s like almost everything you named. I was like, oh, yeah, check, that’s been my experience.

Candice Wu 1:15:00

At certain points in my life, good chunks of my life definitely felt out of place. Like, how could these be my parents, but then I also saw ways in which I was just like them, a lot of shame, and very much directed towards me even it trickled into my siblings, how could it not, you know, the same directed to me.

Candice Wu 1:15:28

I was known for like, stirring the pot and making things worse; and that’s by virtue of me expressing my feelings, you know, saying what’s going on and what I feel and it was a lot of things my family wasn’t ready to look at, and I, so desperately needed them to and needed them to acknowledge because, for me, it felt like survival, and not having enough resource for myself to survive the emotions that were going on and the trauma that was passed down many years that hadn’t been dealt with, that hadn’t been integrated.

Candice Wu 1:16:15

Yeah, many moments of like running away from the dinner table, having stuffed my food in my mouth, and crying. Those are really rough memories, you know, and I’ve worked on them so many times, and this is still a little tender place. But I can say now that I’m in the best time of connection with my family after doing so much work, inner work and embodied work, constellations work, there’s still more of course, but I actually enjoy my family and they enjoy me now and they’ve also looked at a lot, and so the same isn’t really is as strong as like a strong of a tidal wave, and just maybe exists in little pockets now, but as far as like the family system, it seems, from where I’m standing.

Candice Wu 1:17:22

So yeah, I don’t feel like I’m the black sheep anymore, but I once was, and I know that you had shared Bert Hellinger’s idea of black sheep, think on your Instagram and your social media; and many people have shared that it’s really beautiful because speaking to the black sheep as the change, the healing bringing the evolution of the family system forward is so real to me too, and at times, that’s felt like too much of a responsibility because it was and other times, it felt like an honor, and of course my place… it makes sense… like I wanted to do that but so you’re not the black sheep?

Nick Werber 1:18:12

You know, it’s so funny, this always happens is that as I connect to something over and over again, it deepens, and I just, as I’m hearing you, I feel like, I have actually felt I really connected to something about me that’s a little bit more than maybe what I had shared, which is yes, traditionally in my family, there’s the obvious black sheep is my younger brother and he just was a huge handful in a lot of ways and really offended so much of the family in so many ways, but what I would say is, you know, I said this: when we started that he kind of took the role for me because I feel if he wasn’t there then it would have been me, and I always kind of wished I could have been as disruptive as him. But then I think I had this awareness of how it would just kind of destroy the family to have another kid that is rebelling like that and so I felt conscious of that of like, I don’t have a place to be the rebel anymore.

Nick Werber 1:19:26

But I will say this, is what I connected to as I was talking is that I’m actually, truly, from a family of black sheep. My father was the black sheep of his family and my mother was the black sheep of her family, and maybe that’s not absolutely 100% clear from my mother. There’s like a little bit of a gray area there but for my father, it absolutely was, and so it’s funny, it’s like I’m the child of, I’m like, second-generation black sheep in some way which has a huge role in so much of who I am because I wasn’t raised with religion. I’m the first person and both sides of my family to not be raised with religion at all; and there are a million other traditions that I was maybe not part of for partly just because of that, because there are so many traditions connected to religion.

Nick Werber 1:20:24

So, there’s a funny, I think I realized I’m broadening the perspective a little bit. I’m kind of in the sphere of the black sheep, but maybe on the micro-level, it was more clear that my brother was the big one. But can I actually, that Bert Hellinger quote, may I just read it?

Candice Wu 1:20:44

Please do.

Nick Werber 1:20:45

I think it really captures what I feel about black sheep and I think so many people when they hear it, have a feeling to add. So I’ll just read it. I brought it up because I think I had a feeling we’d be talking about it, so, “The so-called black sheep of the family are, in fact, seekers of deliberation roads for the family tree. Those members of the tree who do not adapt to the rules or traditions of the family system, those who are constantly seeking to revolutionize beliefs, going in contrast to roads marked by family traditions, those criticize, tried and even rejected those by general, they are called to release the tree of repetitive stories that frustrate entire generations. The black sheep, those who do not adapt, those who scream rebel, repair, detoxify and create a new blooming branch, countless unfulfilled desires, unfulfilled dreams, frustrated talents of our ancestors manifest themselves in the black sheep’s rebellion looking to take place. The family tree by inertia will want to continue to maintain the castrating and toxic course of its trunk which makes its task, the black sheeps task, difficult and conflicting that no one makes you doubt. Take care of your rarity as the most precious flower of your tree. You are the dream of all your ancestors.” And that’s by Bert Hellinger.

Nick Werber 1:21:01

So lovely.

Nick Werber 1:22:29

Yeah, you know, it just for me, it captures so many things, but I just, I do feel that black sheep carve new roads for families, you know, without black sheep, families can just keep repeating over and over again; and it’s the black sheep that kind of forced them to face things. Even if the family that sits around the “black sheep” doesn’t receive anything, doesn’t take anything in, you know that the children of the black sheep are never going to be the same. They’re always going to experience traditions and family in a different way. So it’s, I think black sheep are just so intertwined with evolution and as he says, you are the dream of your ancestors and I really believe that our ancestors, it is their dream that we evolve and become more of who we are and more in tune with, what fulfills us and what serves others in the world and so that’s, I really, I can’t say enough of how I put black sheep on a pedestal, I really have a lot of respect for that role and families. So thank you, Candice, for playing that role and coming through it.

Candice Wu 1:24:08

Oh my god! No, I’m starting to think about black sheep in a broader context too, because originally when you said are you the black sheep and I had read your post referring to your brother, I started to think about black sheep in this sort of identified patient kind of way. You know, that language comes from the world of psychology and counseling. Like when a family says, we need help because so and so has a problem in our family, they could name one person as the one with the problem and yeah, I often think of that person is maybe the black sheep and that they have a lot of, they can typically have a lot of symptoms or maybe there’s alcoholism or there’s something that becomes very severe that the family cannot continue to look away; and I wouldn’t say that was me.

Candice Wu 1:25:14

I mean, the worst thing I ever did was, and it’s kind of bad, when I was 16, I got a speeding ticket for 51 over the speed limit. Yeah, it’s a lot. I don’t know, yeah, it was crazy. I never drove that way again but that’s probably the worst that I ever drove and so I couldn’t relate to it in terms of being a certain kind of like, severe set of symptoms or experiencing rebellion in a way that is very like oppositional or something like that but I think that’s the way I’m seeing now can be helpful for anyone that doesn’t perhaps relate to that kind of experience too, you know, and as you’re talking, Nick, that there are parts of us that feel like black sheep, there might be a part of us that we can connect with — has felt like it’s been black sheep, so to say. Maybe that’s just shame, you know, where we feel shame or —

Nick Werber 1:26:29

Well, I love that, it’s that perhaps the part of us that doesn’t feel like it belongs is actually the part that is bringing something to the world. You know, we don’t belong because something that we are, it’s not here yet, it’s not accepted yet but actually, if we can find acceptance with it in ourselves and just and share it and be it, then we actually are giving something to the world we’re hoping it, you know, by including more.

Candice Wu 1:27:07

Yeah, so we can find our inner black sheep, and parts of us that don’t feel like they belong, those are the most essential to the entire wave of evolution and the dreams of the ancestors of all kinds.

Nick Werber 1:27:27

Wow, it’s like where newness emerges from. Wow.

Candice Wu 1:27:37

That’s nice, Nick, nice. So nice place to close, to feel complete.

Nick Werber 1:27:43

I think there’s no way that we could switch to something else —

Candice Wu 1:27:44

Yeah, we’re done here. We are done, except I would love for you to just briefly talk about your retreat. Yeah, it’s coming out February 14 through the 18th…

Nick Werber 1:28:02

…through the 19th actually. Yeah, so, you know, I know you’ve done many retreats, Candice and I feel very strongly that you know, Family Constellations are beautiful one on one, they’re beautiful in a group workshop setting. But I believe that they take on their most powerful, most resourceful state when they’re in a retreat setting, there’s something about gathering with the group and being in that container for multiple days that just the energy just builds and I see it in my own facilitation. I mean, these the retreat work, I think that’s beautiful, and so, —

Candice Wu 1:28:55

Yeah, absolutely.

Nick Werber 1:28:56

Yeah and you know, I knew, and I know this because we met at the intensive, which is a form of a retreat, which was a super powerful and I think meeting you as a part of what made that so powerful for me

Candice Wu 1:29:11

Same here. Yeah, it’s huge

Nick Werber 1:29:16

So, yeah, so this retreat, it starts we’re going to be in Mazunte, Mexico, which is Southern Mexico, and it’s overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and it’s just a really beautiful place. Again, you, it’s like you can walk five minutes to the water, and we’ll be doing Family Constellations work and various forms of Shadow Work. The stuff that, you know, it really goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning of this call of, you know, when you set these intentions, you will meet certain barriers and at that point, you know, it’s important to call in your resources. So all the work we’re doing is literally to meet you at that point is, you know, resources that help people actually do the work of chipping away and doing the integration and processing with these barriers. So we’ll get there on Friday and be doing that work on this beautiful terrace that is kind of open-air and I’m just, I’m super excited about it because these groups come together and it’s just people leave as incredible friends and I still see from my past retreats, you know, people basically communicating with each other that I know had met at some of the work that we have been doing.

Candice Wu 1:30:44

That’s awesome. Yeah.

Nick Werber 1:30:45

Yeah.

Candice Wu 1:30:46

It sounds beautiful, and what a great time to you know, if you live in the Midwest or somewhere called to get out into a little bit of warmth and get the fire on the inside.

Nick Werber 1:31:01

That’s a big part of it. Yeah, that was a big part of why we reschedule it, you know, there’s going to be really beautiful deep work going on. But there is a lot of space built in to just go chill on the beach, which is, you know, just as important, and the weather I think is like, you know, the mid–80s basically, winter.

Candice Wu 1:31:28

So good.

Nick Werber 1:31:29

Sounds pretty good to me.

Candice Wu 1:31:31

Awesome. Where can people find that retreat, Nick?

Nick Werber 1:31:37

So if you go to my website, which is just NickNWerber.com, you can go there or my Instagram is @nwerber (instagram.com/nwerber), and then all of its actually being hosted through Maha Rose, which is this incredible organization that’s based in Brooklyn, and that’s of Maha Rose’s website, www.maharose.com is another place where you can read up about it.

Candice Wu 1:32:06

Thank you so much, Nick. This was fun, and do you feel like we, you? Yeah. How did we do on our intentions?

Nick Werber 1:32:19

I think we did great, and I really am. I think we did well, because I really, that it was funny that moment where you said, I think we have to close there was actually the moment where I had felt a sense of, oh, wow, I actually this is, it’s the exact kind of subject that I will spend the next few weeks thinking about of. You know, all those places where I don’t feel I belong, of which there are many, you know, is that possible? That’s just something that’s emerging that the world can I respect it in that way. So I think there is a fullness that I feel when I just connect to that right now, so I think we did well and, you know.

Candice Wu 1:33:04

Absolutely, yeah, to each their own of their experience and yeah, I’ll be thinking about that too, and it’s kind of like a twist on something I’ve been doing for some time. But the words are so poignant now like all the ways I feel that I don’t belong now or maybe in the past, yeah.

Nick Werber 1:33:33

Yeah, well, it’s so, you know, obviously, the reflex of way to experience that is it’s just the opposite. I don’t belong and there must be something wrong with me and all the stuff that we talked about. So it definitely is turning an idea on its head in a way that you know, I don’t know about you, but the moment I connect with it, I just, I feel that sense of my body relaxes and I feel clearer and you know, for me, it’s all the signals that there’s —

Candice Wu 1:34:03

Yeah, same here. I feel that playfulness that I was wanting about it, to approach it with playfulness. It’s a fun process to think about it in this way and I learned so much. Thank you, Nick.

Nick Werber 1:34:23

Thank you, Candice. I feel like we can do this again.

Candice Wu 1:34:26

We still have to talk about all sorts of things like letting — like, kind of

Candice Wu 1:34:33

I love that topic, that was the ones that kept me up and what we resist persists. Like how just looking at that in different ways and through the body. So yeah, a little teaser for our next podcast whenever that comes, but let’s do it.

Nick Werber 1:34:52

The perfect cliffhanger for now.

Candice Wu 1:34:55

Thank you, Nick. Okay, definitely see you next time and just want to say one more thing, actually, thank you so much for offering the music for the Embody Podcast, the intro and outro music. I still use it. It’s still on every single podcast and you created it. It’s so lovely.

Nick Werber 1:35:17

I know. I love it.

Candice Wu 1:35:18

Thank you.

Nick Werber 1:35:20

Thank you. Thank you very much. I’m so glad.

Candice Wu 1:35:26

I’m so grateful for Nick’s presence out in the world, and what he’s doing in support of other people, and in growing the work of Family Constellations in his unique way. It’s really beautiful to be challenged by his work and to learn and grow from it and also to exchange in the ways that we do as friends and as colleagues. Thank you so much, Nick, and thank you all out there for listening. I hope this does give you something to nibble on as we close today. Be sure to check out Nick’s website if you’re interested in his work or the retreat coming up, and his Instagram where he shares a lot of his writing, and again, his website is nicknwerber.com, and you can find all of the links at the show notes related to this episode at candice.com/nickparttwo.

Candice Wu 1:36:24

And as we send each other forward into this new year 2020, this is already been quite a long podcast, so I’m just going to pretty much close it out from here and send you off with of course Nick’s lovely intro outro music if you’re interested in staying connected, you can feel free to sign up for my newsletter at candice.com/embody where I share all about the podcast, and the experientials, and meditations that come out as well as events, self-love notes, and updates about me. Thanks so much and see you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

As a gift, Nick Werber has offered one of his favorite audio meditations on the subject of consenting to people and the present moment as they are. The meditation is originally written by German psychologist, Bert Hellinger, and as read by Dr. Michael Picucci. Dr. Picucci was one of Nick’s greatest mentors before he passed away, and Nick spent a year recording several of his meditations along with the audio version of his book, Vocalizing Source Energy. The content of the meditation gets at universal and enduring truth that our perception of the world around us shapes the world around us. What an honor to have him here on the podcast, sharing this experience with all of you. Though I’ve never met either one of you, Michael and Bert Hellinger, thank you.

Michael Picucci 1:11

This is Michael Picucci. I’m going to recite my own adaptation of a brief guided meditation, originally written by German psychologist, Bert Hellinger. The name of this meditation is Consenting. It is intended to be a deep and meaningful experience.

Before doing so, may I suggest you find a private, comfortable place for yourself, and then slowly find a sense of embodiment and an awareness of your body, perhaps take a few conscious breaths just noticing the natural in and out of the breath. Give yourself a few minutes to notice that we have a live body as well as a mind and let this awareness be an accompaniment to the meditation. As I share the meditation, feel free to let the words wash over you as you are listening to them.

This particular guided meditation is intended to have its own special effects on many levels and dimensions of your experience. Feel free to listen to it as often as it can be helpful to you in finding a better ground of being.

I begin, consenting, as soon as I have consented to other persons as they are, they can feel at ease. As soon as I have consented to a situation, as it is, it changes. It reveals to me new possibilities for action. On an inward journey, I may experience that an obstacle stands in my way. Often, it is something that I have not yet consented to, for example, a pain or loss that I have not gotten over, was something that must be resolved. There is something else to which I must agree, the time that I still need. As soon as I have agreed that I need more time, time leaves me in peace. I may move on.

I experienced something similar with my pain. What happens when I agree to it? When I no longer try to get rid of it? When I take it close to my heart and allow it to calm down in me? When I permit it to take the lead? Perhaps, this pain wants to take me to something that I have lost sight of, for example, another person, maybe this pain guides me back to something that is waiting for recognition and for a solution. Therefore, I stay with this pain as it is the whole time.

With this pain, something recollects itself inside of me. Is it that I pause on my inward journey, in the moment, exactly here? Or is it that this pain is leading me on to a decisive step because I have agreed to it? It takes me by the hand and leads me further and deeper. When I simply surrender, what happens to my pain? My pain, too, calm down and finds its peace. It closes its eyes as if its work is done.

As soon as I agree to everything, as it is, I gain precious time. As I stay in peace with me, something in me and outside of me grows as if of its own accord. These inner journeys are movements of life, I have agreed to everything as it is, I feel free to engage in the essential aspects of life. I may move on in a decisive manner.

These inward journeys of movements of life, what I have agreed to everything as it is, I feel free to engage in the essential aspects of life. I may move on in a decisive manner.

The forces of life first collect inside, only then, do they turn outside. Insights too, a first perceived inside. After that, they set something in motion outside. On our inward journeys, we consent everything as it is, first to ourselves and to our situation, to life as it is, and to the lives of other people. In this way, our inward journeys continue outside as well.

Our journeys to source energy, open other space for us inside. Rilke calls this space, the inner space of the world. In this space, we relate to life in a more comprehensive way, we see it differently, and we become different. After this, we return to our own space, changed, and we turn toward our everyday lives, changed. What is the nature of this change? We are in its service, a line with enough love.

Candice Wu 0:00

In this podcast, Nick and I exchanged lively conversation about Family Constellations and Focalizing deaths, power to bring possibility and connection, how to move deeper than the mind for empowerment, trauma that isn’t ours, rules of belonging and the filters we live through.

Candice Wu 0:19

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 0:56

This episode is sponsored by the Ally With Death Visualization experience. It’s an online do-it-yourself exploration of moving through what needs to be released and go in your life so that you can find your true reasons to live your purpose, and what feels like you, fresh and new, right now. If you’re feeling drained in your energy, or anxious and unsure about what next steps to take in your life, this is a great way to reset and to let the cycle of life, death and life, flow through you. So that you can move forward, refreshed and rejuvenated. You can find the whole experience at CandiceWu.com/death. And very soon, there will be an audio experience and audio-guided experience that brings you to the mood of the experience, as well as stirs you on the inside so that you can come to your truth.

Candice Wu 1:54

I’m totally geeked about having Nick Werber on the show. He is a friend of mine as well as colleague, and we just love talking about the nitty-gritty of Family Constellations and trauma, collective trauma, and other things that excite us like death. I know that sounds funny but we just love talking about all the ways that things can be interesting, healing, and powerful for us as beings, stepping forward in life. Nick and I clicked as soon as we met each other at a family constellations immersion through a mutual teacher that we have, Suzi Tucker. And our personal stories in this podcast as well as this conversation, give you a taste of how we invite each other to stay evolving and inspired.

Candice Wu 2:38

Nick brings a deep thoughtfulness and presence. He just brings a strength of holding space for healing, and those who work with him are given that space and safety to allow the deepest parts of their being to come into focus. Nick’s been working with advanced healing approaches for over seven years and his entry into the healing arts started with Focalizing, which will explain more in this podcast. And from there, a mixture of intuition and serendipity moved him to train with several world-renowned facilitators, Family Constellations, and Systemic Constellations.

Candice Wu 3:12

Along the way, he’s acquired a breadth of experience and certifications in Reiki, mutual awakening, Qigong, and other energy-based modalities. It’s even more special to have Nick on the show because he’s the musician that has generously offered his music for the intro and outros of this podcast. So you know, those sounds that you hear in the beginning and in between transitional spaces, that’s Nick’s music. I love this music, and I’m so appreciative that he lets us use it, and very excited to introduce Nick to you today. So without further ado, let’s jump into the conversation with Nick.

Candice Wu 3:50

It is my great joy to introduce a good friend and fellow colleague, Nick Werber. And Nick, I’m just so excited to have you today on the show. I just appreciate you as a friend, as a colleague. Someone who inspires me from miles away. Sometimes we’re on opposite ends of the world. But I learned something from you every single time I interact with you, whether that’s on Instagram or in a session of Family Constellations. And one of the things that I just really appreciate about you is your presence, in being present when you’re with me and when you’re with others. So I’m just thrilled to have you on the show today to talk about all things healing and anything inspiring to you.

Candice Wu 4:39

Welcome, Nick.

Nick Werber 4:40

Thank you, Candice. The feeling is mutual, and thank you for having me.

Candice Wu 4:44

Thank you. Well, I’d love for you to share a bit about how you see your work, what your work is, in terms of Family Constellations and Focalizing. You and I work very similarly and I’ve talked about Constellations on the show, but I think it’d be really fascinating and interesting to hear how you share what you do and how you see your work.

Nick Werber 5:07

Sure. I call myself an integrative coach and I work in New York City. I’ve worked in private practice, just south of Union Square. And what I do is I integrate a few different healing modalities to help people with, you know, various mental health challenges like anxiety or depression, or people suffering from trauma. And I integrate primarily Family Constellations with a modality called Focalizing.

Nick Werber 5:38

So the way I describe that is that I am working with people where we use Family Constellations to look at the past and where people come from. So understanding how people’s family system or their ancestral system actually plays a role in some of those present issues that they’re experiencing today. And then I tie in Focalizing, which is about exploring how we carry things in our bodies.

Nick Werber 6:08

So it’s kind of this, we look backward and understand what, you know, the events that kind of float into who we are today. And then, go into our body to understand what are the present experiences, and how are they like living within us. And I think that’s something that a lot of people might not connect to, is that so many mental health challenges really do have physical components to them. So instead of necessarily having to talk through it all, if you work on the physical aspects, and I don’t do that through touch, it’s just through mind kind of awareness. But if you can work on those physical aspects, that actually can create a quite profound change in a person’s mental state.

Candice Wu 6:59

Yeah, I have witnessed that in myself and in my clients. You and I actually work very similarly. But I think you bring something very special and how is it that you work with the physical sense and emotion, and how something’s carried in the body through Focalizing.

Nick Werber 7:22

One of the things I like to share about, it’s a very intention-driven process. On one hand, it can look a little bit like a guided meditation from the outside or someone might close their eyes. And I’m kind of helping facilitate them going inward and exploring what’s there. But the biggest difference, I believe, between meditation and what Focalizing is, is how intention-oriented it is.

Nick Werber 7:47

So every session starts with a goal. And throughout the session, we’re working towards that goal. One of the ways we do that is once someone is really connected to their body, just speaking that intention again, immediately allows the body to respond to it.

Nick Werber 8:08

So I’ll have someone repeat, my intention is to feel less anxiety at work. And they’ll immediately get this reaction from their body of, “Wow, there’s a lot of tightness in my shoulders.” or, “There seems to be this kind of strange swirling sensation that I’m noticing.” And then where we go from there is instead of talking about the stories about anxiety, now we’re working with the tightness in the shoulders, or we’re working with that swirling sensation.

Nick Werber 8:40

And so one thing I would say that is really powerful and helpful for people is, if you’ve ever noticed that telling and retelling a story of your past hasn’t been effective and creating a change in your life, that’s almost entirely what this work is founded on is, “Yeah, let’s move away from the story and actually work with what is, like, physically present.” And it’s amazing. Some people, or a lot of people, really fly with that and are able to make big changes when they get away from the stories.

Candice Wu 9:14

Beautiful. I think that’s so powerful to keep it really relevant, and then bring it into the body. What I find too, is that sometimes we just share the story and it just replays itself, and we find ourselves sharing the same story over and over, is related to what you’re talking about. It can also overwhelm the body and overwhelm the system, and re-traumatize in ways is what I’ve noticed.

Nick Werber 9:43

Definitely.

Candice Wu 9:44

Yeah, do you notice that, and I noticed that you work with overwhelm? How do you experience this and what do you do?

Nick Werber 9:52

Yeah, I mean, I think that’s kind of the issue sometimes with the stories is that, to retell them, gets you more stuck in them. What I would say is, I don’t want to say that our past and our stories don’t have value. Because I think, you know in the sessions that I do, I often start with a little bit of understanding of where someone’s coming from. But the way I see the role of that is that you’re almost, like, a conjuring of just a little bit of the feeling and the state of what you’re working with. And then, where I go from there is to guide people to not get stuck there, but to keep moving and finding resources that can come back to that story. So sometimes when we’ve gotten to the point of, let’s say, the past experience again is anxiety. I might guide them to feel, you know, what’s an area of calm that you feel in your body right now? You know, maybe we located the anxiety in someone’s shoulders as I shared. That they’re feeling particularly calm in their legs.

Nick Werber 10:56

And what will guide is a process of going back and forth, and I know in Somatic Experiencing this is called Pendulation. There’s not really a name for it. Maybe if there would be, like, working between polarities would be the way of calling and Focalizing, but we’ll move back and forth. And the whole point of that is if you’re moving, from that resource to that area of discomfort, it makes it much easier to be with the discomfort. And it sort of starts to take the wind out of it in a way. So each time you come back to it, you’re a little bit stronger, it’s a little bit less scary. And I would say another component of it is even bringing them together. What would it be like to actually move that calm to that area of tension and having them mix? And that, in my experiences, creates really incredible third experiences. So instead of either or, you get this third, kind of, healing experience when you bring them together.

Candice Wu 11:56

It’s like letting or inviting the integration to happen.

Nick Werber 12:00

Exactly. Maybe another way of putting that would be, that I think there are so many ways that we think one or the other, and we do that mentally. But we also do that on a physical level where it’s like, in a way, it’s like this is here and then the good feelings are here. And they’re like not to be mixed.

Candice Wu 12:20

Yeah.

Nick Werber 12:20

And if we, kind of, have this process of working with someone that can help you safely bring them together, it’s amazing, the resolution that comes forward. And I would say, what excites me is when someone brings that together, and they get this immediate idea like, “I know what I need to do for myself.” Because it can become incredibly practical when you bring those feelings together.

Candice Wu 12:43

I’ve experienced that myself. One of the healers I work with does a triangle image and the two polar things on the bottom of the triangle on opposite ends, with the two experiences. And then letting them travel up to the top to the point. In my experience, when that happens, it feels to me like, “Poof!” The whole thing, kind of, disappears. Not always. Sometimes some parts get stuck. But when they do meet up, sometimes experience it goes “Poof,” and then I have this expansion, and I can see so much more possibility in that grey zone, in that in-between. Thanks for sharing that.

Nick Werber 13:25

Yeah. And I love that exercise. That sounds very similar.

Candice Wu 13:28

Yeah. I was thinking about how you bring that together for people? Do you just invite the conversation between the two parts?

Nick Werber 13:37

Yeah. For me, it’s all about learning about the person quickly, learning their language. And also getting a sense of- and sometimes I might even ask this, are you a visual person? Are you more, kind of, an internal, interested in your felt senses? So if they’re a visual person, you can do very similar things through visualization, you know, and the idea is that you’re visualizing something that actually is creating a movement on a physical level.

Nick Werber 14:06

So yeah, I would say it really depends on their experience. But I do like right off the bat, seeing how a person interacts with what happens if we’re working with this challenge that maybe you’ve gone from therapist to therapist, to therapist, you know. Because what I do is somewhat of a niche thing.

Nick Werber 14:31

I am working with a lot of people that have done therapy and been with Psychologists for years. So I would say, I’m always really interested in what happens when we get away from the stories because that immediately shakes things up. It’s like, “Oh, we’re not going to talk about this again.” And I look for how it opens and then I go from there.

Candice Wu 14:51

How did you get to this place in your life, Nick? Where did you come from to get to arrive in this line of work now?

Nick Werber 14:59

I came from, kind of, a funny direction where I- So I was working in marketing and advertising. And I was doing that while I was also in a touring band. So I was incredibly fortunate that I was able to work my way into working from home or working remotely, like, very early in my career. So I would be in this band, we’d be on tour, and I’d be at my computer at night, or after soundcheck, doing social media marketing, basically.

Candice Wu 15:35

Wow!

Nick Werber 15:37

Which was cool. And I think part of that, too, is that I identified so quickly that I was really uncomfortable in office settings. And I just liked being on my own. And I’ve always been an introvert, so resourcing on my own, that’s just a natural part of how I resource and how I learn and grow. So I was doing that. And the bassist of that band, I was someone that had been in therapy for a long time, he had gone to many different kinds of therapists and was kind of the person that would go online and was totally happy to dig in to, like, thousands of articles about, you know, what’s the latest thing and what’s amazing for this than the other which overwhelms me. But it was nice because he did that work.

Nick Werber 16:27

And so what he did was he found Peter Levine for Somatic Experiencing and read his books, and just was really fascinated by him. But because we’re in New York and Peter Levine is on the west coast, he was, you know, not able to see him. So he was kind of like, what’s the next best thing? And who he found was Dr. Michael Picucci. And this therapist, Dr. Picucci, who like foreshadowing, ended up becoming, like, the greatest mentor of my life. He was seeing him and he just, out of nowhere one day, just asked, “Do you want to come to a workshop? My therapist is doing a workshop.” No further information.

Nick Werber 17:10

And I just went and it was at this Yoga center. And I had never done Yoga. I had never meditated before. There were Buddhas and I was like, “Oh, that’s weird.” I’m just not really have ever connected with any of this stuff. And just like pleasant ferns, and I went in, and I just- we have this group. It’s like 40 people. And he did what he calls and what I call a “body drop”, which is just closing your eyes and bringing your awareness to your body. And he did an exercise of just, like, moving awareness around and seeing what appears. And when I opened my eyes, he started to just describe, “When you look around right now, do you notice how clear your vision feels?” I’m just like, “Wow. Yes.” And then he said, “Did you notice how timeless that state was when your eyes were closed and we did that exercise?” And I just, was like, “Wow. Yeah, it was like I floated somewhere else.”

Nick Werber 18:15

And just from that point on, there was- the seed had been fully planted. That there’s something here that is of immense value and creates an incredible connection on a level that I think I’d never experienced up until that point.

Nick Werber 18:33

So from there, I became involved with Dr. Picucci, going to his workshops. Then I became a client of his for a while, and then I became really like an apprentice to him. Where I now work for him and I use my marketing skills for him. But there’s a lot of mentoring going on where I’m always learning from him. And he’s been in private practice for over 30 years. He was like the first openly gay practicing therapist in New York City. I mean, his past and his history is incredible. So he’s just been this mentor that I think, kind of, got plopped into my life. And it just changed everything.

Candice Wu 19:13

Wow.

Nick Werber 19:14

Yeah. And so from him, flows an introduction into Family Constellations, where Suzi Tucker, our mutual teacher, actually did a workshop for the Focalizing Institute in the early 2000s. Which was like, you know- So that was something like 15 years prior to me, meeting Suzi Tucker. She had already worked with Michael before.

Nick Werber 19:46

But the thing that’s even weirder and more than serendipitous, is that when I signed up for Suzi’s workshop, I signed up only knowing Michael likes Family Constellations and Bert Hellinger. That’s all I knew. After the fact, I said, it was Susie Tucker. And he was like, “Oh, yeah, she’s the best.”

Candice Wu 20:03

Wow. That’s just, of course.

Nick Werber 20:07

That’s a small world. So then, from there, you know, I trained with Suzi, became so inspired by Family Constellations and what it brings to the conversation. And that’s kind of what led me to where I am today.

Candice Wu 20:21

I love that story. And it just so life-changing, these pivotal moments.

Nick Werber 20:25

There is one thing I could speak a little bit more. I think there’s an aspect of the story that’s important to point out, which is just like, why I became personally invested in it. And the way I share this is when I was involved with Focalizing and I was going to all these workshops, a lot of it was around Trauma Healing. And so I was in these circles, and often you’d break out into pairs and be supporting people around you. And there was a lot of talk that kind of boiled down to people suffering from various levels of PTSD. And I felt so activated and healed by these groups. But something that was always kind of nagging me in the back of my mind was, you know, I don’t necessarily have this, you know, extremely traumatic story in my history that really matches the people that I’m working with. And there was always this disconnect of, I don’t get why I’m so supported by work on trauma. And it was kind of confusing.

Nick Werber 21:37

And so for me, when I found Family Constellations, that was really the missing link of the idea that trauma can move down generations. And that the experience of trauma flows to descendants from parents and grandparents, you know. Suddenly a light bulb went off and I could see there are very extreme circumstances standing behind my parents. And it just kind of clicked that, yes, I can see how that flowed and where that comes from. And so I would say, I’m not necessarily a direct victim of trauma but it’s in my system, and it very much affected how I was raised. And so these two processes, for me, were just like such a perfect mingling of modalities for that experience of what happens when traumas affecting you, but it’s not even necessarily your direct experience.

Candice Wu 22:35

Yeah, that makes complete sense. It’s actually, exactly what I was thinking about in a recent podcast about trauma. One of the things I spoke about was that, I believe that trauma is an incompletion of something that wanted to happen. And if it’s- whether it’s in your personal life or the ancestry, or soul history, but then it started to get blurry. Like the same kind of, I don’t know if you’d call it a blur, but that experience you were saying about, “How come these practices are helping me, but I wouldn’t consider myself having trauma like this?” And in a way, I experienced almost all of us having something in the ancestry that brings us to something incomplete. And I think what I found is that, it’s just not important to call it trauma or not.

Nick Werber 23:26

I totally agree. Yeah. And I would say, when I’m saying, making that description of, “Oh, I didn’t think I had trauma” I’m almost connecting to me at that younger age, where I think I had that label of, like, “I haven’t had a car accident.” or “I didn’t have childhood sexual abuse.” You know, it was like, those kinds of, what you think of as classic examples of it. It’s like, “Oh, I don’t have that. So why do I feel like I resonate with this so much?” And I think you’re totally right. So the way you’re saying incomplete, and I think the way that I say it, which is just different words, for the same thing is that trauma is overwhelm. So it’s something occurred, and there weren’t enough resources there to hold it. And so there was, in some way, in order for a person to survive or handle it, they had to create a barrier between it and them. And so I think in some ways, it’s similar to what you’re saying, where it’s something needed completion, but it was interrupted for some reason.

Candice Wu 24:34

Yeah, exactly.

Nick Werber 24:36

You know, the way where I usually go is that the interruption is around overwhelm, which again, comes from, for some reason, lack of resources, which is, you know, can be for so many reasons. And often, one of them is that the person was so young that it was not possible to hold it at that age.

Candice Wu 24:55

Yeah, I like how you share it that way, because it opens it up little more. It’s an incomplete movement. It’s just like the blanket statement for what you’re saying, which just gives a broader picture of lack of resources, and overwhelmed.

Nick Werber 25:11

So this is something that- I love that Stephan Hausner talks about with regard to trauma is that, when there’s this experience of overwhelm, people create these filters for their life. Where it’s like, that was impossible to hold, it was too much, I didn’t have the resources. And so you almost put these filters up to be able to just manage that, that was a part of your life, that happened. And I would say, you know, when I think about what Trauma Healing is, the way I see it is helping people to gently, kind of, peel away some of those filters that might have helped them survive in an earlier time. But now, those filters are actually preventing a person from seeing a lot of what is happening in their life, that is preventing them from seeing things clearly. It’s almost like the way it’s hard to see on a podcast, but I’m kind of. have my hands in front of my face. And it’s like, once these filters are here, they get put in place by a traumatic experience. But then, they make it harder to relate to a partner. And they make it harder to relate to your co-workers. And so they kind of stay there. You know, when I think of the healing process, I think of how do we process what was unprocessed, that’s been on the other side of those filters for, perhaps, years.

Candice Wu 26:32

I can completely relate to that, and I’m thinking about filters being all sorts of things. Belief sets the nervous system in a fear state, like fight or flight or frozen, overwhelmed. What do you mean by filters?

Nick Werber 26:48

I think those are great examples. I think sometimes a filter can be an intrusive pattern of thinking. So the filter could be, “I am inherently not good enough.” And that came in, let’s say, when something you know, again perhaps, traumatic or terrible happened. And the person, you know, didn’t have the strength to be able to take an action or to help someone, or to help themselves. And there’s like, this sudden inadequacy there, and that “I’m not good enough,” almost like a program that’s running in someone’s mind can turn into I’m not good enough to have the job that you know, I’m trained for, or I’m not good enough to be successful in the way that I’m worthy of. So I would say that’s just another very specific example of a filter.

Candice Wu 27:46

Yeah. So let’s talk about Family Constellations. What’s inspiring you lately?

Nick Werber 27:52

So I think the big thing that’s inspiring me right now is how do we learn from where we come from, and integrate into our lives today? I think maybe it’s helpful to just focus a little bit on Family Constellations, involves this exploration of the past, and involves not only how you were raised might be affecting your present, but how your parents were raised and what they received from their parents. It’s looking a little bit further back.

Nick Werber 28:22

But what I’m really interested in is, just like we started on, how do we not get stuck in the past and use it to its highest potential? So we go back, and then how do we keep bringing it forward over and over again, and creating that similar Pendulation? Or it’s almost like the triangle that you described as well? I would say that’s one thing that’s inspiring me. Yeah.

Candice Wu 28:43

Yeah, I love that. It’s like, how do you find more resource where you thought it wasn’t there, or there was a filter that you believed or saw something different? That’s what it’s making me think of? How do you see it?

Nick Werber 28:56

So I would say a really common thing that I work with when it comes to looking back at the families, is this concept of belonging and belonging is- it’s a survival technique. You know you, as a child, you have to belong to someone to survive before the age of, you know, seven, or else you’re not going to make it. And in that process of belonging to someone, you, as children, instinctively do so many things in order to earn your place.

Nick Werber 29:27

One of them is that you start to mimic your caregivers. And it’s this belief that: “I am deserving of love when I am like my caregivers.” And so you take all this information from them and mimic it back to them. And that’s one way that you, kind of, glue to them. It’s the survival thing. Sometimes it’s called like, systemic love or love for the system that you come from. In part of that process of gluing to the caregiver and belonging to the system that you’re in, part of this is taking in a lot of fantastic qualities. And you’re mimicking all the things that allowed your caregivers to survive themselves. In addition to all the great things that help you survive, you are also taking on information that comes from their hardships.

Nick Werber 30:18

So the way you see it, I think as a child, it’s this unconscious mimicking of the caregiver. But within how they’re making their choices through life is also- it’s a result of their hardships and their experiences. So as a child, you take both the bad and the good. It’s the simplest way to put it. So I would say a lot of what I’m working on is how do we actually still belong to our family but, perhaps, retire some of those aspects that really didn’t even originate with you. They perhaps originated with parents, where they originated with a grandparent. And how do we actually leave it with them? So that you can create something new in your present.

Candice Wu 31:06

I feel like so much of my work with myself and with other people is in doing that. When I’m working with clients, helping them to do that too, or seeing where they might want to do that, is to leave the past in the past or leave parts of other people’s experiences with them, and clearing up all the gunk and all of the clutter that’s been there that we think is ours. And I think that’s an essential piece of what you’re saying of: we take the good and the bad, is also that we can’t see, what we’re taking. The unconscious pieces that we don’t even realize are what it seems like you’re bringing to light, with people.

Nick Werber 31:54

Yeah, we take it all, you know, and there’s no knowing of how it’ll end up later in life, or what that will, you know, turn into? But we just- we take it all and that’s just a part of the human condition to do that.

Candice Wu 32:09

Which leads me to the topic of death. How do you put an end or retire? How do you let certain things in a way die in you and go where they belong, or be let go? I just really enjoy the topic of death. And I know you do too. And when I brought up death earlier with you privately, you’re like, “Love it!”

Nick Werber 32:32

It’s like, one of the few people will, “Let’s talk about death.” And it’s like, “Great. I’m glad you mentioned that.”

Candice Wu 32:38

You were like, so excited. And I’m- that makes me so happy. We might be just a rare breed because I know there are many people out there that are interested in that topic. But what makes you interested in it? What is so alive for you about it?

Nick Werber 32:54

What makes me so interested, is the role that it plays in life. It’s that- When we allow death to be a part of the picture, it pushes us to be more than we are. And I think when we are fighting death in a lot of ways and fighting it in terms of trying not to acknowledge it, or somehow putting it out of the picture, we just move differently. We use our time differently in a way we don’t take life as seriously, or we don’t make as much of it as we could. And so, yeah, I’m fascinated by death and how much it actually can elevate life.

Candice Wu 33:39

I was just thinking about how my partner has Memento Mori. It’s a coin, and it’s coming from the Daily Stoic, I think. And he has it on his desk and it just reminds him of what he needs to do today. And it seems to bring him to more of himself now.

Nick Werber 34:02

That’s sounds amazing.

Candice Wu 34:03

Yeah, it’s really cool. So death. What I think of in terms of what people are dealing with around death is fear of death, fear of loss. What comes up for you, or either for you personally or in your work with clients about that?

Nick Werber 34:23

I mean, there’s a lot of reasons to be afraid of death. One of the things that comes up for me is that I actually, from a very young age, had a very intense fear of death. And I would- Actually, I would calm down. When I was like, seven or eight years old, I would wake up in the middle of the night and I would come downstairs, or go to my parents’ room to, basically, tell them I was afraid of dying. And there was also something for me about sleep and death of like, “Oh, is this what it’s like?” It’s like, “Is falling asleep like dying?” I think it is so important to honor that that is- It’s really profound.

Nick Werber 35:02

The reason why I, kind of, went to this like, “Death motivates life,” is that when we include it in the picture, so let’s say in Family Constellations, if you are setting up this constellation or map of your family or of your life or you’re, let’s say, you’re creating a map of, “Here’s the intention you want to get to and you’re having an issue. There’s like some sort of block.” If you place death in the picture, if you just acknowledge its presence, it’s very common that more options appear, or that it creates a shift in how you’re seeing things. And there’s something about that, like a little bit of fear, and the fear of loss that can actually create and renew connection in some way. This is such a simple example. But when you hear, let’s say, this distant family member is on their deathbed, there is so often the pull to go see them, to make a connection in some way. And I think that happens in a lot of different ways, actually. That when death becomes more present, the connection becomes more needed. And more emphasized.

Candice Wu 36:22

In a sense, there’s just so many ways you can look at that, how death is part of the picture already, even if we acknowledge it or not. And if we’re not acknowledging it, then what else are we not acknowledging? And perhaps that’s part of the connection, piece, or the part of the polarity of death, the aliveness, and the fullness of feeling. And so if we acknowledge it, it seems to open that up.

Nick Werber 36:50

I’m curious for you, Candice. What do you see as, like, the role of death when you’re working with people?

Candice Wu 36:57

Well, there are, as you said, there are many reasons to fear death. And I think what I experience is that, when it becomes a more intense fear, and I’m not sure where that threshold is, it’s just different for each person, what’s tolerable for them, and what’s a little bit more out of their feeling of capacity. But when it becomes more intense, I usually look to something further back in the lineage or something in their life where they felt like, either they personally were near death or something very scary happened and they thought they were going to die. Or, there’s something that brings them to the thought that, “Oh, my gosh, I might die.” And what about that? Where does that deepen and expand into? And then if we look at the lineage, who died? That was unexpected, or where, as you were saying about trauma, was there a lack of resource or just not enough there, to support something that related to death or dying or fear of death.

Candice Wu 38:14

It just feels like it opens up a lot. And, when that opens up and it releases or it moves through, it just lets so much energy run back into the system of the body. And so much as you said, connection with self, but also all of these parts of themselves that they may not have realized where this fear was coming from. And then death becomes something not so scary, but something that makes sense.

Nick Werber 38:50

I love that. It reminds me of something that I sometimes do with people, which is- and you can do this for many things but death is a great example, where you might ask someone, you know, let’s say, if the fear is, “I’m afraid of dying.” What I might ask is, “If that happened, what’s the worst part about that happening?” And that usually opens up a different story for each person. And so if you ask me that, the story would be that, “I wouldn’t fulfill my purpose.” And that is a flavor that just like you said, if you go back to the lineage, “Okay. Did someone die and not fulfill their purpose?”

Nick Werber 39:36

And for me, I have a great uncle. And that is the exact story of the family, where he was 30-years-old and died of cancer. And he was like, this law student that was- he was working as an accountant. He was the golden child of the family, and he died. And it was just, you know, that “not fulfilling purpose”, then becomes this echo that moves around the family system. And I definitely carry that echo.

Candice Wu 40:05

Wow. Yeah, that’s really powerful. It’s reminding me of what you said earlier, is how do you take it forward? When we have fear of death, when death comes into the conversation, I experience a lot of people just ending there, shutting off there, because it does bring that overwhelm back up sometimes or for whatever reason and what you’re saying is don’t stop there. Take it one concept or idea further, one emotion further.

Nick Werber 40:40

Definitely. Because you know mine was not a fulfilling purpose, but someone else could say I wouldn’t be there for my kids. I wouldn’t be able to take care of my parents. You know, then that’s a completely different story, it’s suddenly a whole another picture opens up.

Candice Wu 40:59

Cool. Yeah.

Nick Werber 41:01

Or I would be, even if it’s just simply, I would be forgotten, that’s a whole another picture. There’s so much more information to that than just fear of death.

Candice Wu 41:12

And this is also coming to something so beautiful about Constellations work. And I think maybe Focalizing work because it comes in with Somatic Experiencing, is when something opens up like that, like the why or what people are really afraid of.

Candice Wu 41:32

And in your example, you shared about your family. And your experience is those words, we can just extrapolate those words, and open up all the doors to where those words might have fit, and might have arrived in our hands, when they may not fit in our lives, truly, but they were part of the web of the story that was behind us.

Candice Wu 41:56

I know that you have many stories like that. And to me, I find them very “Oh, just like so inspiring and powerful”. Is there any experience you’ve had lately, personally, or with your clients that feels comfortable to share about how impactful Constellations work has been in this way?

Nick Werber 42:19

Yeah, one thing I just want to point out is that when you’re doing this work, it’s one of the most common things that come up, is someone saying, “This is how I feel, and it doesn’t make sense, like, I don’t know why I feel this way, it seems to always have felt, I’ve always felt this way, and I don’t get it”.

Nick Werber 42:41

When you just start to introduce that idea of some of your present feelings can be the residue of an experience that came before you were born, just even introducing that idea, just taking a moment with that, it’s amazing. I would say 50% of people can already start to get a picture.

Nick Werber 43:01

Actually, there is some way in which this year actually makes sense. And if you don’t get it immediately, that’s what the process of Constellations does. This is seeking it and seeing if it where it might sit. So I just want to point out that I think that’s incredibly common.

Candice Wu 43:21

Yeah, I think that’s beautiful, how you said that with the residue.

Nick Werber 43:25

When it comes to my personal experience, this is something that’s always unfolding. And I’m always learning more. And the relationship between personal experience and family history, I could highlight so many different things.

Nick Werber 43:37

But one of the big ones that I think really defined a lot of my identity, especially up through my mid–20s, is that, I had what so many people have, which is I had a difficult relationship with my mother. And my experience of her as a child was that there was just a lot of anxiety and fear in the household.

Nick Werber 44:08

And so it was like, I remember my brother wandering off once after a baseball game, and my mother, within basically a 15-second period going from: “Where’s your brother”, to: “he must be kidnapped, and he must be gone forever.”

Nick Werber 44:27

And I tell this to clients as well, is that, if there’s anxiety in the household as a young child, what the child takes away from that, and what I took away from it, is that there’s something dangerous here, I’m in danger. And if I’m not in danger, if my mom is in danger, because she’s acting like something could get us at any moment.

Nick Werber 44:54

And so as a child, I started to carry in my body, just like a sense of that fear, that there is a danger.

Nick Werber 45:04

And I’m going to kind of go back and forth between the past and the present. Because, I get that this kind of almost becoming the theme of this podcast, if you like –

Candice Wu 45:13

Yeah.

Nick Werber 45:14

fluctuation

Candice Wu 45:15

Right.

Nick Werber 45:16

You look at fear, there’s something wrong, something’s here and it’s dangerous. And if you flash forward to me, in my, let’s say, my 20’s, is that I got really into the food quality is bad, I need to eat healthily, I need to take a bunch of supplements. And, I can now look back at that and say that perception of, and I’m not saying that food quality isn’t bad, either. But I was very drawn to ways of looking at the world around me and finding where the dangerous or trying to seek out what’s dangerous and trying to escape that. That became this dynamic. That was like a repeating dynamic throughout my life. It’s so many different phases.

Nick Werber 46:04

So another thing that happens when there’s a parent that seems like they’re in trouble all the time is that kids, and this is what I did, become helpers. And so throughout my life, it’s been in my dating experience that I’ve always been the helper to all my partners.

Nick Werber 46:24

I remember actually being at a bar in college and saying to someone, and I’m not proud of this, I just said, “I think all women are crazy.” And I look back at that now. And it’s like, “No idiot, you were seeking people that needed help.”

Candice Wu 46:42

Right. It was like, the lens, your radar was honing in on just these types of women.

Nick Werber 46:53

Yes, but needed someone in their life to help them. And then I come away like, “Oh, it’s all the women that are crazy. That’s them.”

Candice Wu 47:02

And this is how you love, this is how we love, right?

Nick Werber 47:05

Yes.

Candice Wu 47:07

Yeah, that’s such a great example.

Nick Werber 47:10

Just like I’m saying about kind of fluctuating back and forth a bit. So if we return now, again, to this early household experience of there’s some sort of danger, when I got into Family Constellations, one of the earliest ideas that was introduced to me was, you know, okay, this is how your mother was, when you were young, what was her experience with her mother like, and I could immediately start to conjure these stories. And the story was the exact opposite story.

Nick Werber 47:49

So my mother’s experience with her mother was that her mother did not pay attention to her at all. It was like, literally, my mother could be anywhere, and no one kept tabs on her, she could do whatever she wanted. And it was right on the border, almost like neglect. When you hear my mother talk about this, that’s how she speaks about it. It’s like, “We were kind of free to do whatever.”

Nick Werber 48:16

And so, what then starts to fill in as the picture is like, my mother came away from that experience, with a strong sense that it was actually very dangerous. And I believe very strongly that there were some things that happened to her during this period that made her feel like the fact that her parents didn’t know where she was, exposed her to something. And I don’t know what that something is. But I’m very aware that there was something. And so when I was raised, it was almost like reaction, okay, that was bad to not know, for my mother did not know where I was, so I’m going to know where my kids are at all times.

Nick Werber 48:57

And this idea of: I’m going to do the opposite of what I experienced is one of the most common movements that I see in my work. When I look at families, it’s like this skip a generation thing. And I think if I hadn’t have found Family Constellations, I would be very likely raising my future children as my grandmother raised my mother, where I would have reacted against and said, “I had way too much attention on me, I’m going to give my kids freedom.”

Nick Werber 49:28

Again, there’s always more to the story. But I think, I have an aunt, so it’s my mother’s youngest sister that was a genealogist and actually did the genealogy of my mother’s line, and my grandmother’s line, the Kilburn line.

Nick Werber 49:43

And what you can see is that, in these words, you can see, this picture has been developed for many more generations that I’ve just described. And one of the big ones that, you know, if we go just straight to my grandmother, is that she received in a sense, was neglected, it’s basically her story. So I can only imagine that the way she raised it’s not always one or the other. But for her basing my mother was like, she raised her with a little less neglect than she received. And then something happened that allowed my mother to flip and then say, I’m going to raise my child with a lot more attention. And then that created a reaction back my point in this is to not only share my experience, but say, there’s a lot of ways that people choose to reject where they come from. And it can kind of put you in a different form of quicksand, but it’s a very similar quicksand.

Candice Wu 50:45

Yeah, yes, I see that. And it feels like the polarity finding the middle zone again, is coming up in me as you’re talking about it like for you.

Nick Werber 50:58

Middle zone?

Candice Wu 50:58

Yeah.

Nick Werber 51:00

And it’s again, it’s like, “why not?” It’s going back to not one or the other, but what is both.

Candice Wu 51:06

If we don’t reject either one, and we accept both, or find a place for both, then what?

Nick Werber 51:14

And then so in this example that we’re talking about, it’s like, how do we find what is a healthy amount of space and a healthy amount of care and watchfulness, and how do we integrate both instead of having one or the other.

Nick Werber 51:29

You know, and I’m always just tickled by the fact that I did this genealogy because I think, you know, I suspect she sensed some of these patterns that come from the history of that line. And so she dug in and went to all these libraries, searching for microfilm, because this was like, pre-internet, she dug up all this information about the history of that family. And I think, you know, she hasn’t put it in these words, but I suspect it was her own, you know, way of exploring and understanding herself.

Candice Wu 52:02

Yeah. A way to feel like that also brings the resonance for your work, some curiosity. And that –

Nick Werber 52:10

Totally. It makes me think not only are some of these experiences, things that I carry, but it seems like the desire to learn about family as a way of understanding myself is also has a role in my system.

Candice Wu 52:27

Oh, thank you for sharing that.

Nick Werber 52:29

Yeah.

Candice Wu 52:31

So I’m curious about, what challenges are you experiencing now? Or what’s alive for you in your inner world, or your family system world?

Nick Werber 52:43

Something that’s really alive for me, is building my business actually. Which is, I think, is it’s not always the place healers or therapist go. It’s like, there’s often so much focus on processing emotions, or an internal healing, but what I’m finding is, when I’ve created these intentions, to actually reach more people and get my gifts in the best possible way, setting that intention has created a whole new way of interacting with myself. And it’s also given way to a lot of processing and growing. So I would say one thing is that, if you set an intention, like wanting to give your gifts to more people, you have to take care of yourself and take care of your body. So there’s a physical component and a time management component.

Nick Werber 53:42

But one of the other components of this is that, I can see that, you know, in Family Constellations, they talk about, and then the philosophy of it, that your success is also very connected to where you come from.

Nick Werber 54:01

And one of the most common ways this looks, is that often people feel like if they become more successful than their parents, they are somehow betraying them,

Candice Wu 54:12

Yes.

Nick Werber 54:13

Some people will hear that and immediately connect that. Other times, it comes up through the process of like, “What if we actually go through this Constellation process, and in the image that we’re creating, we give you the salary that you’re looking for, let’s say, you just have it. Now, how do you feel?”

Nick Werber 54:34

And suddenly, guilt appears. Suddenly, it’s like, this is too hard to carry. And I’ve found in my process that I definitely have some of that, and that it’s not just a betrayal, you know, that I feel like I belong to their way of life. But there’s also a component of, I think something I’ve carried within me for since I was very young was this almost like being a rebel to the world. I’ve kind of been in rebellion of so many different things. Just like I was a rebellious person in my household. Being rebellious to the world is not the best place to come from when you want to give your gifts to people.

Nick Werber 55:22

So I would say I’m spending a lot of time working with that right now, is to just peel that back and take various directions to, you know, where can I stand where I’m actually more open instead of I think rebelliousness is often a guardedness.

Candice Wu 55:43

Yeah, I think that it can come from the same place as the original fear itself. Or the original thing that’s being rebelled against.

Nick Werber 55:54

Totally.

Candice Wu 55:56

So what do you do to nourish your body or your spirit? Yourself?

Nick Werber 56:04

I would say broadly, I’m putting a lot of attention to self-care. I just think it’s so important for me. I kind of jotted down. I have this list of, here are the things I do for self-care. And what’s great about that is the moment you are feeling unstable or something is coming up that’s hard to, you know, let’s say you just feel like kind of walloped by work, or are just kind of disappointed by how something went, you kind of, I refer to my list of like, here are the things I can tap into.

Nick Werber 56:42

And one of them is, I’m working with a nutritionist, actually a person named Alison. Her website is Feel Awesome. Be Awesome.

Nick Werber 56:52

I think it’s important to take care of yourself. But I also think it’s so important to bring in resources around you. So that’s what I would say, is that one of the things is that I’m seeking, just like having a team to always be able to tap in, and I feel like that’s something that our conversations become too is like, when you work in the industry that we work in, which can be very siloed. I think self-care for me becomes, how do I create even more of a network and more people around me?

Nick Werber 57:26

So that’s one. I mean, very practically, it’s like, I had a green juice this morning, and I’m eating organic.

Nick Werber 57:35

I feel like a little bit hesitant to say those things, because then, it can sound like, I don’t know. You ever had someone talk about what they’re doing for nutrition and then it becomes like a competition?

Candice Wu 57:48

With the other person?

Nick Werber 57:50

Yeah, exactly.

Nick Werber 57:51

It’s like, here’s what I would say is, I feel like most of the time that I will say something like, “I’m drinking green juices on a regular basis.” The response from where I’m speaking to is, “I’ve been trying to cut down on sugar.” And I was doing this once. And it almost like brings up their own like, what they should or shouldn’t be doing.

Candice Wu 58:13

Yeah, like, I’m guilty.

Nick Werber 58:18

Yeah. Just feel that just now that I was like, “Oh, I don’t want to, is this going to come off as bragging to even say that I’m doing this stuff?” Which is, that’s kind of weird, actually.

Candice Wu 58:30

Well, isn’t that the same as: it feels to me that could come from the same place as the betrayal you spoke about,-

Nick Werber 58:38

Yes.

Candice Wu 58:39

Right. Like, if I am doing something good and healthy for me, and I can’t share it, or else the other person will feel bad. And it will betray them if I feel good.

Nick Werber 58:52

You nailed it, Candice, and that’s why you’re so talented.

Candice Wu 58:55

Yes, we’re working together here.

Nick Werber 58:58

It’s true. But, I think the protection, you know, I’m kind of, I’m still “My mind goes to the listeners of this podcast.” And it’s like, I think there’s a lot of what we’re talking about. Sometimes it can do sound like philosophy or theory, the point to me is, if someone could take something away from what we’re talking about, it’s not to now become this incredible analyzer of your family.

Nick Werber 59:23

You know, the whole point is that you’re working with someone else, like, have Candice or I become a little bit more of the analyzer for you, and then allow you to just have the experience of what it feels like to step out.

Nick Werber 59:38

So, but what you bring up Candice about that thing about the protection of others, that’s like a perfect insight. If someone can reflect back to you, that you seem to be taking care of others, it just becomes a signpost you know, because you say that I’m now more likely to notice when I’m doing it. And then what I would suggest is to even go further, if this was the session, is to then go to a physical level of like, what does it feel like to be someone that takes care of other people?

Nick Werber 1:00:13

And, you know, from there, I think what would be more than likely for me is, well, right now my focus is to be taken care of myself more. So I’d like to be focused on that, which is what I just said. So –

Candice Wu 1:00:28

Yeah.

Nick Werber 1:00:29

And now we’re working with two polarities that might be nice to come together.

Candice Wu 1:00:34

I was just thinking that. I was thinking about how both of us are resonating in that polarity and integrating that third space. And, here is just like such a lovely moment of that, where it’s not about one. I don’t know, maybe that’s a Constellation in itself, like, where do we get the idea it was one or the other that could be happy?

Candice Wu 1:01:03

Or let me explain myself, it’s almost like: if you feel happy and feel proud of yourself, and it may not be something that I’m doing, or I feel proud about myself doing, it’s almost like only one of us can have our experience here.

Candice Wu 1:01:22

And if the upset is the prevailing feeling of one person, then we could only play to that in a way. And how do we find where we can both exist, it’s both and where’s the dance of both experiences being okay, and accepted, where it doesn’t have to put down another person. Like, it doesn’t have to be protection. I’m just trailing away. Now, I feel like I kind of went into something that I couldn’t explain very well, because there are so many parts.

Nick Werber 1:01:54

Yeah.

Candice Wu 1:01:55

Yeah, it’s just what came up.

Nick Werber 1:01:57

I almost wish you could just rephrase it one more time.

Candice Wu 1:02:00

Well, I guess as I’m sitting with it, it feels that when the experience of protecting someone else happens to me, or when I’m in that space, I’m usually in a younger child space, or perhaps it has to do with other things like some sort of energy passed down as well. But it doesn’t feel like I’m in my whole self where we can accept or I can accept both experiences mine and the other. Where I just play to someone else’s experience, and how to make them feel okay, as a way of loving them. And that just doesn’t seem to work. Because then, I’m not really quite loving myself.

Nick Werber 1:02:46

Yep. Totally. There’s almost a part of me that wants to like, what’s the answer to that question of where did it come from, where we thought there could be one or the other. Because that is perhaps one of the central assumptions that I think people live with.

Candice Wu 1:03:06

I have been thinking about that actually. And go figure, I’m watching Game of Thrones again, and the hundred is even worse, in terms of that mentality, as I’m watching these types of shows.

Candice Wu 1:03:25

First, it feels like, “Yes, this is the way we need to sublimate this energy of the experience of war and people being slaughtered.” And only one tribe can live, kind of experience, like this is for the survival of our people. And I think that’s just been so prevalent in our societal history, in our earthly history. And it feels like a trauma wound from all of those experiences put together, that we think one or the other, only one can exist here.

Nick Werber 1:04:09

Wow! That’s such an interesting direction to go in. But what that makes me think about is just that, it’s like the property of groups is that when a group is formed, there is a sense of what makes you a part of the group, why you belong to that group. And it’s part of the nature of groups too, to push out people that don’t fit that mold in some way.

Nick Werber 1:04:32

And then that’s obviously been like, you know, was war the origin of that, or just that even go back further? You know, what is that perception that where I went, this isn’t a fully formed thought, but I just felt like I was going back to almost like stories of the Bible, and just like being the center, and it was like, people were good than the apple was eaten, and now they’re not good. And they’re cast out.

Nick Werber 1:05:01

And it’s just like, this archetypal the origin of like, you’re in the garden, or you’re out of the garden. And when you leave, you know, here’s now all the things to return to, like the grace of where you were, basically. And it’s just such a, it’s a deep concept, feel like I almost- this would require a whole another podcast to talk about it.

Candice Wu 1:05:27

I think so. And I think actually, it just lets me arrived back again, and for me to belonging.

Nick Werber 1:05:35

Yes.

Candice Wu 1:05:36

Which is something you know, you and I talk about all the time. And you’ve mentioned in this show, and in Family Constellations, it’s like the cornerstone of everything, we will do all sorts of things to belong and to stay in the good life of our grouping, because we need that safety at a young age. And then we just live that way, thinking that that’s how it has to be –

Nick Werber 1:06:03

Yeah.

Candice Wu 1:06:04

as adults, but we have more resource now. So we may not need that way. So I think about the one or the other, and pushing out experience that you’re talking about, as the fear of being pushed out. So I better love in this way. And I want to love, and this is how I think I can, without any of that process going on in our minds, just happening.

Nick Werber 1:06:29

Exactly. And, that is something just right at the end there that you share. I think it’s important that people understand that, these, you know, I’m using quotation marks in the air. It’s like, these decisions are not conscious decisions. How we belong, and where we feel safe, and where we go, it happens automatically. And in some ways, it was like if you were the firstborn, the second born, or it changes depending on what sibling you were, and in birth order.

Nick Werber 1:07:01

And, so are so many ways that it’s sort of given to you. But I think when you are fully an adult, and you can stand in your strength, you have a lot more freedom than you think, to create a different life for yourself. And so, I would say, my role, the way I see it, is helping people to take a step out of some of those patterns, and then processing all the whatever feelings come up about that step out, if it’s guilt or fear, and then allowing people to feel nice and rooted and safe, standing in a different place than they were before.

Candice Wu 1:07:43

This gives such a relief feeling, even just to hear that process. And to know that position is open, it’s there.

Nick Werber 1:07:55

Very fruitful to hear this process of seeing how your family and ancestry contributes to your present experience. But at no point should we ever lose sight of, that we are individuals that have an incredible amount of power over our lives. I like to leave people on is like, you can create something new.

Candice Wu 1:08:16

Yeah, thank you for that. And I think that’s like a whole other podcast too. Maybe one we do together. Because I brought that topic up with you before about there’s absolutely influence. A very big one from our family system and our group dynamic mentality or way of being. And then there’s our personal spirit and being that has the ability to be full in itself.

Candice Wu 1:08:46

And that’s a complicated conversation. So it’s just not for now. But thank you for that reminder. And I also love the reminder about everything we’re talking about. It’s all words, and it’s nothing to the experience of what’s in the body. And what’s the lived experience, which can unfold any possibility that is completely different from what you and I have talked about, or may match, but there’s no answer, except for the one within.

Nick Werber 1:09:15

Yeah, and I agree with it. The word experiential, I think is, I don’t think I mentioned it earlier, but it’s probably the most common word I use for the way I work. And I think in the experiences the power of this work, and it’s that if I told you, you know, here’s what’s happening now stop doing that. It wouldn’t mean nothing.

Candice Wu 1:09:40

Yeah.

Nick Werber 1:09:41

It would literally mean, basically, almost none.

Candice Wu 1:09:44

Well, we tried to do that with ourselves all the time. It doesn’t work.

Nick Werber 1:09:48

Yes, exactly.

Candice Wu 1:09:50

I want to stop doing this, or I should,

Nick Werber 1:09:53

Yes, totally. And so even with this conversation, it’s all of our words are trying to point back to just like you said, just an experience of what these sessions look like, and make some powerful and different from simply just like getting a diagnosis, and here’s how to change it, is that you’re engaging something deeper than the mind.

Nick Werber 1:10:19

And I think the reason why I talked about the body is that when you feel safe in your body, to do something different, or to step out and take a chance in a way you haven’t before. If you feel safe in your body, those old barriers or those old thought patterns just have a little less power again, when you create a new experience on a physical level, on a deeper level, I think the reverberation of it can really cut through in a very different way than simply a thought.

Candice Wu 1:10:52

Yeah, it’s in your bones then.

Nick Werber 1:10:55

And if it’s in your bones, you don’t have to remember it.

Candice Wu 1:10:58

Yeah, your body can do the work

Nick Werber 1:11:00

Yeah.

Candice Wu 1:11:00

It’s not even work. It’s just the body is and energy is.

Nick Werber 1:11:05

And that, I mean, I don’t know your experience but mine with Family Constellations and Focalizing is that, I’ll do a very targeted, like, a session that’s really based on a specific intention. And at the end of it, I might not even remember half of what we spoke about.

Candice Wu 1:11:22

Yeah.

Nick Werber 1:11:22

But two weeks later, suddenly, “Oh, you know, I did just do that thing that I wanted. I wish I was getting around to.” Or, “My relationship to my partner has become a lot clearer all of a sudden.”, and “Oh, yeah, that was what that session was about.” And that’s the work that I love is when someone can step away and the change happens without needing to have to do something, and you might get a kick out of this.

Candice Wu 1:11:49

I’ve heard this before that Bert Hellinger, the person that kind of originated Family Constellations would tell people after the session, “Go home and don’t do anything.”

Nick Werber 1:12:00

Because people would learn all this about them. And they’d say, “Oh, I need to call someone.”, “I need to go change this.”, “I need to quit my job.” And he’ll say, “No. Go home and don’t do anything, and wait for an answer to arise organically.” And for me, that’s exactly what’s happened with this work.

Candice Wu 1:12:18

Absolutely. Yeah, for me as well. When I say absolutely, that’s- I think that’s so important with this work. Because we find out a lot of things, and we can just feel compelled to move quickly.

Candice Wu 1:12:32

Well, thank you, Nick. One thing I would love is for you to come back on the show. And for us to talk about some of the things more in-depth that both interest us and who’s listening out there. Is that something you’d be interested in?

Nick Werber 1:12:46

Yeah, I’d love that.

Candice Wu 1:12:48

And in this case, I’d invite anyone who’s listening to reach out to either one of us and just share what you found interesting, and what you want to know more about. If there was a topic like death or belonging, or protection that we might talk about with a little more time on the podcast. We’re happy to hear from you.

Candice Wu 1:13:11

And Nick, I know that one of the best ways that people find out about your work and check out if it’s a good fit for them, just like it is actually the same experience that I have, is to work with you or to experience something from you. And so, Nick is offering two very special things today in terms of experiencing something that he’s offering and experiencing a dynamic with him, or how it would be like to work with him. Nick, would you share your audience gift and about meditation that we’ll offer?

Nick Werber 1:13:48

Sure, for your lovely audience, I’m giving half-off sessions. Any person that wants to try Family Constellations and Focalizing, and the way that I combine them, can reach out to me, and they can get half-price per session.

Nick Werber 1:14:06

And one of the things I just want to share about that is: that I love working remotely. So if someone isn’t in New York City and is interested, please reach out. We can be really effective at a distance. And the second thing is that: I’m going to be doing some guided meditations for people. So I’ll be recording a guided meditation, and I believe will come back and kind of present that to your audience.

Candice Wu 1:14:34

Absolutely, yes. When this podcast airs, the meditations that Nick offers will go out the week, during that week that this podcast is published. So, you can enjoy that and get a taste of what Nick does. Nick, is there anything else you want to share today?

Nick Werber 1:14:55

I think I just want to say thank you, Candice. It was really good to talk to you. And I’m glad that we did this.

Candice Wu 1:15:00

Thank you. I’m really glad that we did this too, and I always learn something more about myself when talking to you. And it’s just a joy. Thank you so much. So, where can people find you, Nick?

Nick Werber 1:15:14

So the place you can find me are: nicknwerber.com and then I’m also on Instagram at @nwerber. And I really also encourage people to go to Instagram because I write a lot there.

Candice Wu 1:15:33

Yeah.

Nick Werber 1:15:34

So if you’re interested in this work and interested in exercises, I put a lot of it out there.

Candice Wu 1:15:39

Yeah, it’s excellent. Everything you put out there, I just take something away from. So check it out if you’re interested in what Nick has to say. And also everything will be linked in the show notes. So, no need to remember. If you want to just go to the website CandiceWu.com/podcast, you’ll find that. Actually Nick’s episode, CandiceWu.com/nick. Super easy.

Candice Wu 1:16:04

Okay. Well, thank you so much, Nick.

Nick Werber 1:16:07

Thank you, Candice.

Candice Wu 1:16:11

I’m so grateful that Nick was able to come onto the show and give his story as well as thoughts today. I always learned so much from him. And I hope you did too. We do have plans to do another podcast so that we can dive deeper into some of the topics that came up. I think we could just go on endlessly. I hope you join us for that. And I’m so grateful that you’re out there. I appreciate you listening in. If you have questions for me and Nick, feel free to reach out to us. As always, you can find Nick’s information on the show notes at CandiceWu.com/nick and take a moment to check out his healing experiential which brings you support for working with a challenging situation with a family member.

Candice Wu 1:16:52

If these podcasts bring you any joy, inspiration or support in your life and you want to contribute so that this can continue, feel free to go to my site at CandiceWu.com/patreon and on Patreon. Just want to let you know that if you’re interested in a healing meditation that is personalized just for you, there’s a level of donation monthly that you can receive a quarterly personalized meditation based on whatever you need in your life right now, what you’re building for yourself in the empowerment that you want and I do that intuitively and in connection with you based on what you want right now. So again, that’s CandiceWu.com/patreon.

Candice Wu 1:17:34

Before you leave today, I’d like to invite you to sign up for the bi-monthly newsletter that goes out with all sorts of podcasts, retreats, information, as well as resources for loving yourself and other healing experientials. You can find this at CandiceWu.com/embody and check out the page on Facebook The Embody Community, which brings very quick snippets of ways you can support yourself through the day, through the week, ways to love yourself, heal, or to bring more Embodiment to your experience that’s CandiceWu.com/embody. I’m so grateful you’re listening and take care. I’ll see you next time on The Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

Today we have a very special episode, it’s an offering from Nick Werber who was a guest on the podcast this week, you can find Nick’s full episode at CandiceWu.com/nick. Enjoy this very powerful healing experience with Nick.

Nick Werber 0:25

Hello, this is Nick. I’m going to bring you through an exercise that combines Family Constellation work with Somatic healing work and a new technique I just learned from a person named Daniel Ryan in the city here.

So to start, just take a moment to get comfortable where you’re sitting and you can close your eyes when you do this. Or, if you don’t feel comfortable with that, sometimes people like to choose an area about three feet out in front of them, that they can kind of zone out into the floor and just softly keep their eyes open.

Now allow your attention to go down into your body. So sometimes I like to think of my attention as a spotlight or magnifying glass and just bring that down to the felt sense of contact between the soles of your feet and the floor. Just get a sense of what it feels like to be touching the floor. Is the floor soft or cold? And when you get a sense of that, move your attention like a spotlight up into your body. So slowly moving your attention, up your shins, into your knees, through your thighs, now up into your stomach and then to your chest.

Just take a moment to notice the rise and fall of your breathing there. No need to interfere or try to control it in any way. Just allowing your breathing to be the perfect breathing at this time.

So from here, I’m going to start.

Take a moment to imagine a family member that you may have some sort of negative emotional charge with right now. It can be someone you’re angry with, you’re frustrated with, someone you just feel resentment around. It can be someone that’s living or dead. It can also be someone you didn’t necessarily see during the holidays. Who comes to mind?

Imagine that person about five feet standing in front of you. So visualize them standing there facing you. What’s it feel like in your body for that person to be standing there looking at you? Do you feel frustration or tension or tingling? Where do you feel that sensation? Where do you feel it the most? Take a moment to locate that sensation.

For those who aren’t feeling unnecessarily a strong sensation, you can visualize that person taking two steps forward. So now they’re less than a foot away from you and check in with your body again. Where do you feel any kind of body sensations that are coming up? And where do you feel it the most? How would you rate that sensation on a scale of one to ten, ten being extremely uncomfortable?

And now as you’re paying attention to that uncomfortable sensation that you just rated, what color would best represent that sensation? What comes to mind first? It can be more than one color. But just name it in your mind.

Next, what would be a color that would represent the antidote to that color? You might think of it as the opposite of that color. But it just might be a soothing color that you feel would help the color that you just named. Now, with that new color, that soothing color, imagine that color coming in through the crown of your head down into your body and moving towards that area of discomfort you were just feeling. Allow that second color to come in and begin to touch the first color just to the edges. So right where you felt that area of whatever kind of discomfort or could be a tingling sensation, whatever the feeling was, allow those two colors to begin to merge. And at first, it can really just be cordial touching at the edges. But that they’re slowly starting to dissolve together and take a moment to let that complete.

Keep allowing the colors to merge, you might see a third color appear, or a new image. Just allow whatever it comes up to be.

Okay, I’m going to go on to the next step. So if you’re not done yet, you can open your eyes gently and pause the audio. For those who have completed, now, how would you rate that area of your body that you were originally feeling a sensation in? You had given it a number before, what number would you give it now on a scale of one to ten? How does that sensation feel now?

Did you feel a positive change? You can take a moment to celebrate, just in your mind’s eye. Maybe giving yourself a pat.

Here’s where the exercise comes to a landing. Before I got you out of it, I’ll just leave you with this. You just did a very focused piece of work on a family bond that resides within you. You can allow this exercise to drift away. There’s no need to analyze it or try to understand it. But in two or three weeks, you might be curious to just check-in, how is your external or internal relationship with this person changed?.

Thank you for being here with this exercise and I hope you enjoyed it.