Candice Wu 0:00

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

Candice Wu 0:17

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

Candice Wu 0:25

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

Candice Wu 0:39

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

Candice Wu 1:00

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

Candice Wu 1:34

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

Candice Wu 1:56

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

Candice Wu 2:51

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

Candice Wu 3:07

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

Candice Wu 3:41

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

Candice Wu 4:10

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

Candice Wu 4:29

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

Candice Wu 4:43

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

Candice Wu 5:11

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

Candice Wu 6:26

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

Candice Wu 6:38

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

Candice Wu 6:56

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

Candice Wu 7:13

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

Candice Wu 7:35

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

Candice Wu 7:59

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

Candice Wu 8:34

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

Candice Wu 8:52

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

Candice Wu 9:13

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

Candice Wu 9:23

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

Candice Wu 10:03

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

Candice Wu 10:29

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

Candice Wu 10:49

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

Candice Wu 11:24

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

Candice Wu 11:46

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

Candice Wu 12:15

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

Candice Wu 12:39

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

Candice Wu 13:00

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

Candice Wu 14:07

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

Candice Wu 14:43

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

Candice Wu 14:49

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

Candice Wu 15:18

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

Candice Wu 15:57

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

Candice Wu 16:44

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

Candice Wu 17:25

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

Candice Wu 17:36

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

Candice Wu 18:09

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

Candice Wu 18:24

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

Candice Wu 18:47

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

Candice Wu 18:58

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

Candice Wu 19:48

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

Candice Wu 20:02

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

Candice Wu 20:30

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

Candice Wu 20:47

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

Candice Wu 21:08

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

Candice Wu 21:36

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

Candice Wu 22:42

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

Candice Wu 23:11

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

Candice Wu 23:33

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

Candice Wu 24:22

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

Candice Wu 25:15

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

Candice Wu 25:46

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

Candice Wu 26:16

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

Candice Wu 26:49

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

Candice Wu 27:32

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

Candice Wu 28:12

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

Candice Wu 28:50

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

Candice Wu 29:16

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

Candice Wu 29:47

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

Candice Wu 30:18

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

Candice Wu 30:43

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

Candice Wu 31:07

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

Candice Wu 31:39

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

Candice Wu 32:06

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

Candice Wu 32:30

And then she’ll screech like this – making sounds

Candice Wu 32:37

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

Candice Wu 32:44

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

Candice Wu 33:01

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

Candice Wu 33:25

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

Candice Wu 33:47

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

Candice Wu 34:07

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

Candice Wu 34:20

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

Candice Wu 34:35

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

Candice Wu 35:34

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

Candice Wu 36:12

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

Candice Wu 36:33

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

Candice Wu 36:51

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

Candice Wu 37:16

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

Candice Wu 37:43

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

Candice Wu 38:05

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

Candice Wu 38:27

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

Candice Wu 38:44

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

Candice Wu 39:07

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

Candice Wu 39:23

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

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

Silver, you tell me Grey horse you show me

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

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

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

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

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

Candice Wu 40:41

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

Candice Wu 41:14

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

Candice Wu 41:48

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

Candice Wu 42:18

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

Candice Wu 42:58

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

Candice Wu 43:25

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

Candice Wu 0:00

This episode is a{Live} now where I talk about my first couple of days being in Ireland working on a horse farm. Tune in to hear all about the challenges and the growth that I’m experiencing, as well as themes that are coming up that you can explore yourself, including working with boundaries, loving yourself and being playful with yourself, releasing codependency, putting on your assertive hat and clarity of intention.

Candice Wu 0:34

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

Candice Wu 0:48

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, having Co-Creative Conversations with healers and wellness practitioners from all over the world.

Candice Wu 1:09

Wow, it has been some time since I got to share with you what I’ve been doing. And I am absolutely in a whole other world.

Candice Wu 1:19

Hello, welcome back. It’s good to have you here today. And I want to just share with you what’s going on right now, which is why this episode is titled Alive Now. It’s what I’m going through or experiencing, what my thoughts and feelings are about what’s happening right here and now, without planning and more unfiltered than the other podcasts where I’m more organized and cohesive around a theme.

Candice Wu 1:50

So, a{Live} now, I love it because it’s just touching into the vulnerability of the moment. And what’s truly alive now, which gives us life which makes us feel that we’re alive. And here it is, it’s live.

Candice Wu 2:07

So if you have been listening and then you know that I’m in Ireland, and it’s cold here, it snowed yesterday, the day before that, it poured rain, it’s extremely muddy everywhere. Thank goodness, the person I’m staying with has let me borrow some rain boots because it is mucky. And sometimes they step into mud and I’m practically knee deep.

Candice Wu 2:31

So you’re probably wondering why it’s so muddy and I’m talking about the weather so much because I am living on a farm with four horses. I’m staying with a woman who needs the help, because she works, sometimes nights and sometimes days, but works often and her children have grown up and are doing their own thing.

Candice Wu 2:56

So I’m here to tend to the horses, which involves feeding them, cleaning out their stalls, yes, cleaning poop, and whatever else got in that stall and bringing them in and out of their stable so that they can be in the field and the arena that they have here, every day.

Candice Wu 3:19

I had no idea what this would be like. And as I got here, the first night I didn’t get to meet the horses because it was dark and it was just pretty much time to go to sleep. Well that night, I was like what have I gotten myself into? I want to go home and I was pretty serious. But something inside me, a deeper voice said: “No, Candice, you know why you’re here, you’re here for a reason. You want to learn, and you want to learn how to be with horses in a very respectful and collaborative way. And this person, this host that you have here is going to teach you.” And this is now a couple of days in, about 5 days in, and that has been very true.

Candice Wu 4:09

My host is someone who has worked with horses for a long time and had her own horses. And she learned natural horsemanship. And what she says now is that she responds to the horses and the horses teach her instead of learning from anyone else that’s teaching horsemanship. She’s learning from her horses. She’s taking in the information about how her horse is responding, what they need to learn, how they’re reacting, and being responsive to them, so that they can learn and grow alongside her.

Candice Wu 4:46

I am on the northwest part of Ireland. And bearing this weather was one of the hardest things for me, because the room I’m staying in is the coldest room of the whole house. And sleep is one of my biggest challenges anyway, and when I’m just way too cold, I pull the covers over my head, and then I get too hot and it’s just this kind of battle back and forth. But now that I’m in several days, I’m much more comfortable. I made the space so that it feels a little more like my own. I have racks that I travel with, some crystals and some essential oils and some gifts from friends. So that all helps me feel a little more grounded, and comforted.

Candice Wu 5:38

I’m used to traveling to different spaces, as you know, this year, I’ve been traveling a lot. But I did travel with my partner. And also I chose the spaces that I was going to stay in, we chose those spaces together, and that brought a lot of comfort. I had a lot more control, even though there were so many things I couldn’t control.

Candice Wu 5:59

But coming into this space, it was kind of alarming. I am not used to being in a farmhouse, and one where there’s so much mud and horse poop just tracking in and out and using a coal fire to heat up the house, which I have some conflict with but it’s also keeping me warm so it’s an interesting experience.

Candice Wu 6:32

As you can hear, one of my challenges here is releasing my reliance on comforts. I think it’s so normal as humans to have things that make you feel comfortable that you rely on, and that you count on day to day to make you feel like you can get through life.

Candice Wu 6:52

Life is hard sometimes and we need those things. And as I got here, I felt very stripped off them. Even the most basic things I had to come to terms with. And as I do that, I remind myself why I came to begin with, which is to learn to work with horses, and also to grow on the inside to strengthen myself so that I feel actually a complete inner freedom.

Candice Wu 7:29

And it’s kind of a lot to ask for. But I want it and this whole year has been layer after layer of gaining more inner freedom. And what I mean is releasing more attachments, releasing more belief sets that are outdated and don’t make sense anymore.

Candice Wu 7:49

And now, it’s also to feel that I can love myself through the challenging moments, I can be with myself when I feel very alone. And if tough experiences happen, I can be that advocate and loving compassion for myself. I know that it’s important to reach out for help and support when you need it. And to be able to do that as a skill in itself, something that I’ve learned and been able to do quite well in the last several years.

Candice Wu 8:18

So now my learning is different. It’s to release any extra little tangled up dependencies on others, where I actually can, just pause and take care of myself. I can pause and see what on the inside is happening? And what do I need? And how can I stay with myself and provide myself what I need? How can I be a leader within myself, so that I can actually lead in my life?

Candice Wu 8:52

And here, in my experience to live with the horses, it’s especially challenging when I’ve experienced trauma as a child, where I had disruptions with attachment, with attaching to my parents, and feeling that love and security and safety. So as I travel and as I come here to this space, I feel again more layers of the need for safety, the need for comfort, and the experience of wanting it to come from the outside.

Candice Wu 9:29

But then pulling back and feeling the strength in me, the parts of me that are my inner parent and inner lover that can give me that kind of safety and support that I need. And alongside it, I’ve been just reminding myself that I’m alive, I’m breathing, my body’s here, I’m safe.

Candice Wu 9:52

And thinking back to some of the comforts that I had, even a couple of weeks ago, being in Germany, with my partner and his family, and talking with friends and just drawing in experiences that remind me of safety and remind me of comfort. How simple it is to be able to just remind ourselves that we’re safe right now. Physically, may or may not be emotionally but physically, we’re safe and we can breathe. We’re alive.

Candice Wu 10:34

Of course, not everyone is, but my guess is if you’re listening to this podcast that you are.

Candice Wu 10:40

So wanted to offer that and what I’m going through and talk a little bit about how it’s been here otherwise, other than that initial reaction of wanting to go home, and some of the learning that I’ve had.

Candice Wu 10:58

Well the day after I arrived, I was able to witness my host be with all four horses and those horses or led into the arena. And I watched them play out their dominance game with each other of who was going to be the leader. And what hierarchy was this herd going to be in, and how are they going to interact with each other. And watching the alpha horse, maintain his space, keep his boundaries and tell the other horses to move out of his way and to back away when he wanted them to or to move when he wanted them to.

Candice Wu 11:40

So this is really interesting, I really need to work on my boundaries, I have worked on them with asserting my boundaries in terms of like what I need or want or what I, you know where my limits are with people, that’s something I’ve learned my entire life. I feel like I am finally I’m in a place where that feels manageable and there’s still some stretching to do. But here I’m feeling really challenged, because spatial boundaries are part of that spatial and energetic boundaries.

Candice Wu 12:23

And I’ve been asked by my host to start there at the very basic with the horses is to keep my boundaries, my physical boundary of having at least two horse spaces between me and the horses so that I can get accustomed to them, they can get accustomed to me as a leader. And so the alpha horse doesn’t let anyone in his space if he doesn’t want them there. And that’s something, being a leader of horses is necessary to do so that they respect your space, and don’t just plow over you. And so that you can establish a leadership role.

Candice Wu 13:01

So that’s just what I’ve been learning. And if you are working with horses, you may have a different way. I’m just a baby in this, I’m just getting to know this from scratch really, because what I have learned from other people really doesn’t seem to fit into the scope of what I’m learning here where we’re going very slowly and foundationally so that we don’t have to hit a horse or kick them or use harsh methods to ask them to respond because we only traumatize them and numb them. But we’re asking them to respond with a sensitive cue and pressure and the release of pressure to show them that they found the right solution, what we were asking of them.

Candice Wu 13:58

So that’s kind of going to down the rabbit hole of working with horses, at least from what I’m learning right now. But coming back to boundaries, it’s not easy. When a horse is walking right at you to assert that you don’t want them to come closer. And you do certainly do not want them right up next to you and in your space.

Candice Wu 14:24

So that’s a challenge for me and as I’ve worked with it, it already helped me feel stronger in myself, along with that is not moving. If the horse gets you to move your feet or move around, then that horse is in a leadership position to you. And so they know they can move you and get you to move by just walking towards you or getting in your space.

Candice Wu 14:56

Well, that’s not going to work in terms of being a leader with horses and wanting to collaborate with them. So standing my ground, and being very conscious of where my body is, where their body is, and how to use my energy and the tools that I have, I can use like a carrot stick, it’s like a stick with a string on it to extend my body kind of like a tail or a longer arm, holding my ground, standing there and being solid. Of course, I’ve learned to do that in Yoga, like Tadasana standing there or being in opposed. But it’s completely different for me when a large animal that’s extremely powerful, is coming at me.

Candice Wu 15:46

So with that, it also helped me release a lot of self-consciousness and be even more present with myself and accepting of myself just being here. And that’s something I’m taking into my life in a whole host of ways. Maybe you can even hear it in my voice right now. And I wanted to offer that to you today. Because it’s such an interesting thing to play with, with humans walking down the street, it’s not.

Candice Wu 16:17

Maybe what we want to be doing is making everyone move out of our way. But are you someone that lets everyone move you? And do you walk around everyone? Or do you bend to what they want and forget about your own intention or desire? Or do you not even know your own intention or desire. That’s been a challenge for me, when I meet up with a strong personality or perhaps the authority, and I accommodate to them and shapeshift and move around so that I can manage how I’m going to feel if they react if I choose my own intentions. And if they’re not favorable to this person, then there could be a reaction that I don’t like, and then I could have a reaction to that.

Candice Wu 17:08

So it’s really about managing other people’s feelings to manage my own feelings. And that’s something I’ve worked with so that I can be, we can coexist, and I can have my intentions and others can have theirs, and that is true harmony.

Candice Wu 17:29

Where are you with this? Is this interesting to you? And do you have the experience of wanting to either bend more and be more flexible and accommodating or to stand your ground more? And even imagine a horse coming at you and standing your ground and telling them no, move, don’t come close.

Candice Wu 17:50

There’s no right or wrong. And there’s no best way it’s really about where you’re at, and what you want to learn next. And it’s not just with boundaries, that applies to its everything. Every skill and tool that we have that people say, “Oh, you should be this way”, or “You should learn that. You know, you shouldn’t?” Yeah, it’s only if you want to, it’s only for your learning and your growth. And you, as an evolving human being, what you want to be doing here, and what tool you feel like you want to expand into or what way of being do you want to try so that you can expand? What do you want to expand? It’s completely your choice.

Candice Wu 18:38

So working with horses is bringing me that to that choice as well. Being clear on what I desire, what I intend to do. And I mean that in a big way, like in life, but also in a moment where I’m coming out with a bucket of food. And I see a horse coming at me and I need to place this food in this stable and not have this horse come near me. What is my intention? And do I bend and get afraid? Take a different direction if I see this horse coming at me? Or do I say no, please stay over there and keep going?

Candice Wu 19:19

So I hope that’s interesting for you. I also want to talk about how I’ve been treating myself with just a lot of acceptance and acknowledgment that I’m very new at this and letting myself go one step at a time, loving myself through the whole process and seeing what comes up. I can tend to put a lot of pressure on myself in situations where I really want to be good at something. And I feel like I should already be good at it. And it’s that passion mixed with some old perfectionism that makes me get hard on myself or feel ashamed if I did it, “right or wrong”.

Candice Wu 20:09

And I’m really learning that’s just not helpful and to shed and release those feelings. Because there’s just so much that can happen with horses. And I just, I don’t want to go there anymore. I don’t want to be mean to myself, there’s no point.

Candice Wu 20:29

One of my healers was working with me on this and she was like, be crap at this, just let yourself be crap at it. Which is funny because I’m shoveling poop every day. Is it mine? Yes, there’s some of mine that I’m clearing out. And I’m aware of that too. Like, what am I releasing and getting rid of? What’s the shit that’s been in the corner. And a lot of that’s clearing out here, in this experience.

Candice Wu 21:02

Another aspect of myself that I have been working with while I’ve been here, and while I’ve arrived is being assertive. I grew up in co-dependent relationships and therefore expect certain things of others. And that can just come out here and there. And luckily, I can see it happening.

Candice Wu 21:27

So when I arrived, there were some basic things that weren’t just given to me and offered to me easily the way that I might welcome someone to my home and hope that they feel comfortable. I had to ask for a towel, and I had to ask for toilet paper. And at first I was like: “Oh, am I going to be too much?” Or: “How is this going to be if I’m constantly asking for things, there are so many things I need. And these are just the basics.” But I released that voice and said: “No, this is quite reasonable to ask!” And let go of some of the expectation that I had on my host to be that offering that she didn’t need to be.

Candice Wu 22:20

And I’m very well capable of asking for things myself, and was I expecting some mothering. And I absolutely was. I wanted to feel that comfort of someone taking care of me, especially since I’m living in their space. And this is a completely unfamiliar space and experience. And I’m going to be interacting with this person, I really wanted that mothering. But I can do that for myself, I can mother myself and I can put my assertive hat on and ask for that toilet paper when it’s not there. So it’s really clear to me that when I’m frustrated, or getting into a mode where I want to complain about someone or some situation, if I’m unhappy with a circumstance, that’s an opportunity to go inside of myself, and notice my reaction of course and accept it, allow it. And that allowing gives way to see if there’s a place inside myself to find a solution, to comfort myself or to do something that can support me on the inside or maybe it’s doing something on the outside like asking or reaching out.

Candice Wu 23:39

So is this resonating for you? Do you have a place in your life where you want or need to put your assertive hat on, and to take proactive steps around something where you might be waiting for someone else to do it or just dwelling or sitting in your circumstances without creating an active change, whether that’s inside your heart or in your outer circumstances.

Candice Wu 24:15

Let yourself be curious with that and find some play, playfulness with it so that you can see yourself as this human who’s learning and finding their way. Exploring a different way to be in the world and to show up differently, or to show up as more of yourself. It’s all learning.

Candice Wu 24:40

So for me, this assertiveness shifts some of the old habits of co-dependency of relying on people to do things for me and me doing things for them. But it gives a very clear boundary and autonomy that I can do for myself what I need and reach out for what I need. And I don’t depend on other people to just know or to take care of my emotions, I can do that.

Candice Wu 25:10

Now, this is not to say that I do it all alone, because I certainly have friends and family and healing coaches and healers that I work with, that continue to give me support. And that’s a planned time or that’s when I need to reach out and I know to do that. But, this is definitely a challenge I want to give myself is to see how I can find a different support within myself, a love within myself that’s even stronger and more powerful. So that I can move about the world in a way that feels even more like myself, and even more full in myself.

Candice Wu 26:01

So with all that said, I continue on here. I’ve had moments of loneliness and recognize that’s part of my younger child perhaps or other parts of me that are having different feelings and work with those parts of me. And I’m learning so much about being with horses, and how to be responsive, respectful, and take responsibility for them and their safety so that they can be in a space that they can learn, and that I can learn.

Candice Wu 26:45

So I’m still getting to know the space here, getting to know the horses, getting to know my host and her family and getting to understand and work with my own schedule. As far as when I’m seeing clients and when I’m podcasting and doing other things.

Candice Wu 27:05

The funniest thing is when a horse just clunks on by right past the window, as I’m having a session. I haven’t necessarily told my clients when that happens. But, it’s quite amusing to me to see that in the periphery. And I’m just adjusting here and it’s all new. And if you are interested in hearing more, I hope to be sharing more of these Alive Now podcasts and will be sharing bits and pieces at the front end of each podcast that’s coming forward.

Candice Wu 27:40

And today, I’ll just leave you with a little story of a time where I had to be very kind to myself, and just laugh at myself to take in the learning. It’s pretty much horsemanship 101 or courses 101.

Candice Wu 28:02

Don’t walk outside from the house with two buckets of food. No way to protect yourself like no carrot stick, no anything and not know where the horses are around you. Because they can walk right up to the house. They’re free and at liberty. Yeah, don’t do that.

Candice Wu 28:25

So I did that. And yeah, one of the horses came right towards me, and there wasn’t any choice. Safety always comes first. And my host was shouting, “Put one bucket down! Just one bucket!”. And I couldn’t take it all in, I got overwhelmed. So my body kind of froze, and I just stood there as this horse is coming at me. Because she wasn’t coming at me like charging or anything. But she was walking towards me and knew I had food.

Candice Wu 29:05

So finally I put one down. And of course, she was eating it. And I was meant to put the other one in one of the other horse’s stalls. And I hesitated because I’m like, I don’t want to put this down, she’s going to eat it. But finally, I did because I heard my host saying it out loud over and over until I did it. And managed to take care of the rest of the situation.

Candice Wu 29:30

But yeah, boy did I learned my lesson to observe first and get a handle on what’s going on outside, have some ability to expand my territory and my space so that the horses don’t get near using the carrot stick and only come out with one bucket. Just one, don’t bite off more than you can chew Candice.

Candice Wu 29:59

And that does reflect my life, I tend to take on more than what might be comfortable. I can try to achieve a lot at once. And I have a little bit of impatience with it. So I’m learning that patience.

Candice Wu 30:14

And that one bite at a time experience. What a concept, right? It’s something we hear all the time, but when it truly has consequences that are potentially dangerous.

Candice Wu 30:31

There’s this other horse that would have plowed me right over especially because I don’t know her, just because she loves food and would have just like, run right towards me. Luckily, she wasn’t in that vicinity. But when things have real consequence, and direct consequence like that, I learned very quickly, let’s just say.

Candice Wu 30:55

So I’m really grateful for this experience. And it’s continuing to be challenging, and very rewarding. And I think I’ll stick it out.

Candice Wu 31:06

So that’s the end for today. Well, I hope that you got something out of this. And I thank you for joining in and listening. And I hope you got a laugh out of it as well. I’m certainly laughing at myself and trying to keep that amusement going.

Candice Wu 31:23

I’m always curious about hearing your thoughts and if you have questions, comments, feedback, or anything, so feel free to reach out to me, you can find me at CandiceWu.com and tune in next week for even more of what’s happening here. And I’m sure I will have lots more to share about places I’ve messed up and what’s happened or the learning I’m having, and the challenges and the growth.

Candice Wu 31:58

So take care and I appreciate that you tuned in and listened to this Alive Now moment. I hope you’re feeling alive in yourself or moving towards what makes you feel alive.

Candice Wu 32:12

If you’re interested in seeing some pictures or hearing even more personal bits of what’s happening, I share those in my newsletter that goes out every other week. So you can connect with my newsletter at CandiceWu.com/embody and sign up there.

Candice Wu 32:30

And also check out the other podcasts at CandiceWu.com/podcast. And I would love your support on Patreon. If you like this podcast, if you find it interesting or enjoy what I’m putting out there, it would be such a great honor if you would like to contribute to Patreon. There are a couple of gifts there as well, and exchanges, that you can find there where you can receive meditations or be part of the embodied group call that happens every month.

Candice Wu 33:04

All of the money on Patreon goes straight to the production of this podcast as well as videos that I’m putting out, all the free content that goes out. So I thank you very much for considering that and it goes a long way, any little bit.

Candice Wu 33:21

So let’s end today with a quote that resonates very deeply with me about why I’m here working with horses. It’s by Eckhart Tolle, and he says, “We are here to find that dimension within ourselves. That is deeper than thought.” Thanks again for tuning in and I’ll see you next week on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

This is your life and holiday season. This episode is all about how you get to design, enjoy, savor and exercise the power of loving yourself through the holidays. Try out eight embodied ways you can love, take good care of yourself, and respect yourself through the holidays.

Candice Wu 0:17

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

Candice Wu 0:32

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 0:49

I want to send a personal and heartfelt thank you to all of the new patrons on Patreon this month, I deeply appreciate your support, it’s been really exciting to see who’s coming through and to welcome you to the community in this way. All of the money that is donated to Patreon is in support of the back end experience behind the podcast, the production, as well as all of the time and energy, and love that I put into it.

Candice Wu 1:21

So, this year for the holidays, if you want to give a gift to a good cause, consider donating to the Embody Podcast, where all that money goes to support healing and self-love for yourself and everyone involved. And you might consider donating in someone else’s name, someone who likes the podcast or would benefit from receiving a gift, like a personalized healing meditation, each quarter or a group healing session or any of the Q and A and meditation offerings that I have that are gifts of donating. You can find all that information at CandiceWu.com/patreon.

Candice Wu 2:01

So, it’s the holiday season, I invite you to cozy up with me today in this conversation. Today, I have some mint tea with me, and I invite you to cozy up with a warm drink or something that feels pleasant for you.

Candice Wu 2:22

Like my mint tea with some honey.

Candice Wu 2:24

You take a moment and get something for yourself or get a blanket.

Candice Wu 2:42

And let’s check-in a little bit. So, as you sit down, just feel into yourself and notice how you’re doing. Take a moment for yourself. Just feel your breath. And let yourself arrive here. We’re here together. It’s a pleasure to have you here. And I’m just delighted that you tuned in. Thank you.

Candice Wu 3:12

So, this year for the holidays, I’ll be in Germany, and we are wrapping up our time in Spain, my partner and I, and I’ll be visiting where his family lives. And it’s interesting because typically, I’m normally in Hong Kong, where I have some family and I get to see my grandma. So, being in cold weather again for Christmas is actually kind of exciting. I’m also preparing myself for where I’ll be in January, which is coming up pretty quickly. And for some time, I just had no idea where I was going but felt like I need to book my flights, I need to make some plans. And the interesting thing is that all I knew was I wanted to be around horses more. I wanted to warmth, warm weather, and I want to be able to podcast and work with my clients as well as write and develop some of my online courses about dreamwork and other things that are happening behind the scenes here.

Candice Wu 4:18

And it was interesting to feel a large amount of uncertainty and discomfort around that, and just slowly leaning into that and trusting that I will find my way when I find it and things will be revealed when they’re revealed, which is something that I’ve learned over time is one of my patterns that I’ll feel discomfort and uncertainty. And then I’ll slowly lean in and things will be revealed over time that I couldn’t have even known a week ago or three days ago. And as I embrace them when they come, the next thing reveals itself and things just flow from there, and usually, that comes with a great deal of ease.

Candice Wu 4:59

So, that ease, inspiration, and knowing does come, even though there’s some fear along the way. Does that happen to you? Does that sound familiar? And if it does, notice your words and your story around that fear, discomfort. This place of discomfort might be just the place where you can learn a little more about yourself. What’s the meaning that you apply to fear, anxiety, nervousness or uncertainty that’s an interesting part of either your story, your past life or your ancestry? So, within that, you can really explore and deepen something there that can also clear up at the root. So that fears just fear or that maybe there isn’t fear. And it’s just a little feeling of, huh, I don’t know what’s happening next.

Candice Wu 6:02

So I’d be curious what happens for you. And you’re more than welcome to reach out to me and share that. I love hearing from you. And knowing what’s going on for you, side by side this podcast. But just to give you an idea of what’s happened then is that I found this website help x.net through a friend and started looking at some of the sites on there. They’re all farms or people looking for help in different parts of the world. And I saw this post that just seemed absolutely perfect. It was a woman who’s a psychiatric nurse, and she has four horses, and she’s wanting help in exchange for horsemanship lessons. It’s in Ireland, I just didn’t think I’d be going to Ireland, but what better way to work with horses than to be out in the middle of nowhere in Ireland and learning from someone who sounds like she’s really connecting with horses in a compassionate way, which brings me to one of the topics today is how to be compassionate to yourself, and one of the things that I’ve been thinking about is respect.

Candice Wu 7:18

Today is Wednesday, as I record this podcast that will go out Monday. And I meant to do this podcast over the weekend. That was my plan, but I kept feeling like I wasn’t ready or other things were important, and they felt exhausted by the time I could get to this. And the word respect came to mind. I was feeling into how can I really respect myself, respect my boundaries and my needs, my energy in order to approach this podcast in a way that actually conveys that respect and love that I’m sharing with all of you. So, can I come from that energy, too? And that meant I had to push this off practically to the last minute, which is still okay.

Candice Wu 8:12

So, how are you respecting your energy, respecting yourself through the holidays, through life? And that respect really got brought up when I was thinking about working with this woman in Ireland, because she talked about interacting with horses in a way that is not predatorial because horses are prey animals, they are always looking out for what’s going to hurt them or eat them or what’s going to prey upon them. And humans are more predatorial in general, and a lot of our behaviors towards horses, she explained and I’ve been learning is extremely predatorial, all two horses and they don’t feel safe, they don’t trust humans that just come up and touch them, or just start to clean their shoes or groom them without that connection beforehand.

Candice Wu 9:09

And even tying them up in order to get them to do what we want them to do, that’s extremely predatorial. I’m not judging what people are doing out there with horses, but what I’m learning is something very new to me because of all the places I’ve taken riding lessons from, we don’t exactly allow that connection to build over time, we just jump on and ride. And I think that’s just not the way I want to interact with horses at the moment. But I understand why it is or where that might be important or coming, where it’s coming from rather, the need to be on time with writing or the need to train horses so that people can ride them or work with them. But all of that really, is that a need? Is it necessary for us? Is it conquering? Which I do believe it quite is.

Candice Wu 10:12

So, if I just assert power over these animals, and do what I want to do and push what my agenda is, how much are they going to feel that connection with me and how connected will I actually feel with them? And I find that that’s how we have been treating ourselves, our spirit and our body, that we often push some agenda upon ourselves. We override what our feeling is inside about what we need. What’s truly supportive for us, and we go ahead. But we develop this dissonance between who we are, our body and what we’re doing, and how we treat ourselves and therefore that trust gets broken.

Candice Wu 11:10

So, with that, I’d like to introduce the topic today, which is how to design your life, how to respect yourself through the holidays, love yourself in ways that support you in feeling your best self into shifting out of autopilot and into presence, intention and having the permission to do it your way.

Candice Wu 11:39

So, it can be quite a busy time of year as we are continuing into the New Year, which can bring all sorts of things, shared connection, joy, rejuvenation, a lot of delicious experiences. But sometimes, it’s bringing regression, we revert to different parts of our that get triggered. Sometimes, it’s pulling ourselves off of our normal self-care routine or doing things that we feel we should do, versus the things that we want to do, and that ultimately takes a toll on us. Maybe it’s going to this holiday social gathering or party, or shopping for gifts, cooking or eating differently. All of this can start to wear on us and trigger our stress more easily.

Candice Wu 12:28

Remember that this is your life, you get to design it, you get to enjoy it the way that you want to, and be proactive about how you treat yourself, how you love yourself. And the holidays are no different. It’s, in fact, a really wonderful time to assert that respect that we’ve been talking about towards yourself. The only permission that you need to take your own steps is the fact that you already exist. This is your life, and perhaps the inner permission, that permission from yourself to choose what you want to choose, to even look at what you want for yourself.

Candice Wu 13:15

So, in this episode, I want to talk about eight ways that you can design your holidays, and take really good care of yourself from an embodied and intentional perspective. There’s also a blog post written up on this with these eight tips in a short version. And starting tomorrow, which is December 11, the day after this originally airs, there will be a day to day tip, a tip each day for all of those following on Instagram. And it’s something where you can just focus in on one thing a day and start to integrate that into your life. So, find that at Embody Your Nature on Instagram.

Candice Wu 14:00

So, let’s start with tip number one. It’s aligning yourself to your desire to the state of being. This is pretty much like an intention, but I really want to focus on that experience of what state of being do you want to be in as you move through this holiday season or move through your life in general? So, what would you like to feel like this holiday season? Would you like to be in a state of ease, in joy, calmness? Would you like to be in a frenzy? Busy or anxious? What feeling do you want to feel?

Candice Wu 14:41

Instead of letting our circumstances decide who we are being, decide our state of being, instead of letting our reactions pave the way for us, let’s be proactive, responsible and clean without our energy. This is energy hygiene, it is being attentional and aligning yourself to the state of being that you’d like to feel. And then acting from that place. Taking a step from that place, moving from there.

Candice Wu 15:14

You know, when you’re doing a task, even if it’s something like doing the dishes, if you come from the state of being of frustration and obligation, like “Why do I have to do the dishes, that pile?” Versus a state of being of ease. If you feel ease into yourself, if you have had an experience of ease before and you can tap into what that feels like in your body and come into that place before you do the dishes, your whole perspective might be different. Granted, you still might not like it, but maybe it’s coming a little easier. Maybe there’s something you can enjoy about it when you feel that doing the dishes is easy. There are much harder things in life. And of course, if you have depression or you’re in a really challenging place, stressful place in your life, if you have a life that’s very busy, then doing the dishes might be still very, very, very hard.

Candice Wu 16:24

So, there’s no shame in feeling that things are hard, but how can you help yourself the best to approach something from a different place, from a different storyline, from where you were before? So, while we can tap into a state of being that we’ve had before, for example, if I want to tap into feeling calmness. When have I felt that sort of calmness before that I’d like to feel or if I want to feel into trust, where and when was a time I felt that kind of trust that I really like to embody now?

Candice Wu 17:07

And well, that feeling might be a result of something that has happened in the past, it’s one way we can strengthen our ability to deepen into a state of being that we can call upon, over and over, we can call upon that part of ourself, that knows how to feel that way. And that just allows that feeling to enhance and grow, expand, then that state of being can come before the action and the things happening, which gives way for us to be this way, no matter what happens if it’s strong enough. And so you can build yourself to that place.

Candice Wu 17:48

A couple of weeks ago, I did a podcast on alignment, and there was a meditation on resourcing your desire, which will walk you through that whole entire process of tapping into a feeling you desire, which can support you in getting in sync with yourself, with your most aligned self, your desired state of being. So, check that out at CandiceWu.com/alignment and find the meditation called Resource Your Desire, if you want that step by step. You can also just start by journaling and seeing what words resonate with you as far as how you want to feel during this holiday season or even into the new year, And embody it, feel it in your body, how that feels And notice where you feel that where your body tells you you’re feeling joy or connection, or whatever feeling you want to feel.

Candice Wu 18:49

So, now let’s move to number two is design your holiday season, take the approach of you designing your life. So, instead of going on autopilot, and letting all the social events take over, and feeling pulled in all those directions, be proactive about how you want to spend your time, see what your values are, and what’s feeling important to right now. Does that mean you want to spend time with your family and have quiet time by the fire? Does it mean you want to see a couple of different friends or have a big party and see all of your friends? What do you want? What kind of feeling do you want?

Candice Wu 19:31

And step one of feeling into your state of being and really inform how you want to design your holiday season. And this designing aspect is that action step, the state of being was feeling how you want to feel, and that inner being, the inner energy. And this step is what steps, what actions will you take in order to create that to be congruent with the state of being that you’re going for and that you’re, you are from the inside out.

Candice Wu 20:05

So, if you could do anything you wanted, without any consequence or hurting other people’s feelings, what would you do? And how much of that would you like to go for this holiday season or this coming year? Be honest with yourself and assertive about what feels enlivening for you, and doing that helps everyone involved. It gives permission for you, yourself and those around you to create the life you want and to be in the life you want. And even if others maybe initially disappointed, this may also lead them to the path of following themselves.

Candice Wu 20:48

If you’re doing an activity that you really don’t want to be at, or you feel too exhausted to be at, you’re not going to enjoy it very much likely. And other people may feel that as well or you might push yourself to the limits and create an experience that feels good for the moment, but really you pay the price later. So, ask yourself, are you doing certain things or activities because you think you should, or because you feel obligated to? Or is it because this is just what you’ve always done this time of year? This is what you expect of yourself or what others expect you to do.

Candice Wu 21:29

Someone recently shared with me that they feared missing out, they feared not going to a networking event because they weren’t going to have that chance to network and to be seen and to share their work, their business, etc. and my thought was: if you’re not going to that holiday party, with that inspiration about your business and your marketing efforts, it probably won’t be that kind of enjoyable connection that allows the right meaningful connections to happen, and it may not be the fruitful kind of experience you want to have, anyway. If you’re going because of that fear of missing out, it’s not quite a good reason, and some parts of you will act from that place, of obligation, that place of fear. So, acting out of fear.

Candice Wu 22:28

So, I invite you to do things because you want to and to prioritize your enjoyment, design what you’d like instead of letting the holidays run you. And check in with yourself, monitor yourself a bit. If you got something on the calendar, and you’re not quite certain, if you want to be there, there’s just some feeling in you, check with yourself, “Why do I want to go? And if I don’t, what will happen? Or what do I fear” And if you have a response to that, like “I’ll miss out or people won’t get to know my work, or people will judge me”, whatever that is, then that’s a really good gauge that you might be acting out of fear.

Candice Wu 23:16

And then ask yourself, “What do I really want to do?” Get real with yourself and see what the answer is. And whatever it is, validate it, acknowledge it, maybe it’s you want to curl up in bed and read a book, or take a nap or go outside and take a walk by yourself, or go to something that’s more wild and fun, and got music, whatever it is, acknowledge what you want. And if you do have that fear of missing out, ask yourself, “Well, is what I want worth doing with my time?” And it’s a good gauge to see what you’re most compelled to do.

Candice Wu 23:58

If what you want is really not worth doing, then you might check in again and see what’s going on around that, what’s the story behind that. But if it is, if it is worth doing that, then great, because you might feel way better choosing what you truly want to do than choosing the obligatory event or thing that you would have had on the agenda. The thought I have is, why would I want to be anywhere else than where I want to be? Which is kind of a circular question, but it makes sense.

Candice Wu 24:36

The third tip I have for you is to balance giving and receiving. So, check in with yourself. I think this time of year is interesting, we’re called to give. And we’re also called to receive in a lot of ways and that can stretch us, that can trigger us, that can be too much in one direction. So, check to see if you’re really available and present to give. Check in to see if what you really need us to receive and to nourish yourself. And see if you can allow yourself to receive without shame or guilt. How much of you can receive? Your body, your emotions, your intuition, all of these are your best cues to tell you what’s truly best for you in the moment. So, respect yourself.

Candice Wu 25:27

Feel into yourself and see. Is it okay for me to give right now? Do I need to nourish myself instead? Or have I done enough of that, and it’s time to give and reach out? What you can do, an easy thing to do is check in with your heart and just to put your palms on your heart. Replace your palms together to connect yourself to your heart energy. And ask, ask yourself, “Am I open to receive?” “Am I open to giving?”

Candice Wu 26:10

As far as receiving, stretching your limits of receiving and seeing how much of you is open to receive to truly receive something with compassion for yourself and with that, embracing of what’s coming your way. So much of the time we resist what people are offering us, we end up saying to them, “I don’t want what you have to give.” And it might feel like rejection on the other end. But that’s usually because of our own insecurities around receiving. Receiving love, receiving gifts, receiving compliments. Are you often the one that’s giving? And are you able to turn that around and let yourself receive just as much as you give?

Candice Wu 27:05

From my family constellations perspective, we can look at giving and receiving, these two actions in a very interesting way. There needs to be some balance for the relationship to feel in harmony. You might also notice from which place of yourself are you giving, is it out of joy, love or excitement and inspiration or is it out of obligation? And this can be a way you take charge of your own energy is to find the place in you that wants to give for the right reasons, for the reasons that feel right for you.

Candice Wu 27:47

So, let’s take a little break and have some more of your tea or drink whatever you have there.

Candice Wu 28:00

Mine is cold now, maybe I’m talking too much.

Candice Wu 28:05

The fourth tip I have for you is to give yourself permission to be unavailable. That can be any time of the year, ofcourse. The holidays might be an important time for this. You don’t need to return every call or be at every party. You don’t need to show up everywhere you’re asked to show up. So, this is a way to take care of your energy and focus your attention on the places that you value the most right now. This is a very deep way to respect and not override your needs, your desires, what you truly feel is right for you. And you can share your gratitude for someone else’s reaching out or for their invitation and let them know you won’t be able to make it or you won’t be able to talk. You can respond when you want to, your time and space is yours.

Candice Wu 29:01

I tend to feel like when someone reaches out to me, I need to respond right away even if it’s to let them know I can’t respond or that I won’t be available for a time. What about just taking that time, and responding when you feel it’s right for you to respond? Respecting that need allows other people to respect their needs, of their timing and their pace, everyone has a different pace, some people respond right away because it feels the best for them. And I used to be that but it started to become more stressful for me. And I wanted more space and time between communications. And one of the things to move a little slower. So, what is your timing? What is the kind of pace that feels good for your inner being and for your outer being?

Candice Wu 29:52

I have a few friends that like to just go in their cave and be a hermit for periods of time. And initially, I took that a bit, personally. I didn’t understand what’s going on, but over time as I got to know them, and as we began to be more honest with each other, I realized that they need that time, they just need to go inward and be by themselves, and respecting that is really important. I’m glad that they respect that in themselves. And that also gave me a new permission to find that the pockets of time and spaces that I want something like that for myself, just like respecting a cat for going away when it wants to go away. We don’t force the cat to be right there in front of us, that would be pretty abusive. So, why not treat ourselves with that same understanding, that sometimes you just need to go this way or that way. So, give yourself that permission to be unavailable if you need it or perhaps it’s giving yourself permission to be available if you tend to be that hermit, which is an entirely different topic, but related.

Candice Wu 31:07

Okay, and now we’re to our fifth way to love yourself through the holidays. It’s to attune to pleasure and joy. There are two ways that I can feel into pleasure and joy and that’s either finding it in the moment with right where you are, noticing what feels enjoyable to look at? What sounds pleasant? What smells are here right now that feel pleasant to smell into? What feeling in your body feels pleasurable at the moment? How can I enjoy this tea a little more? And that’s just one way to just embrace what’s already happening in the moment.

Candice Wu 31:55

Another way is to create your own pleasure. So, whether that’s getting a blanket or pillow to make your body more comfortable or designing a holiday experience. Choosing that you want to go ice skating instead of going to that networking event or do an outing instead of a dinner. Create your pleasure. If you want something more step by step around this, I have two links for you around finding the pleasure in the moment or creating your pleasure. And you can check that out at the show notes connected to this episode or go to CandiceWu.com/holidays. So, I challenge you to finding your pleasure, finding your joy, and feeling into it as much as you can. If you’re at the grocery store, what is pleasant in that moment? Did feel good to stand on your two feet, or to breathe?

Candice Wu 32:58

If you’re in a conversation, what’s the joy in it? Feel into that and lean into it, let your focus go there. So that you can appreciate the moment and feel into the experience. Breathe in those lovely smells or sit in the corner that feels the most pleasant. Make yourself something delicious to eat or drink or put some candles on, or the music on or do the activity that feels exciting and enlivening to you. We’re not always trained or conditioned in ourselves to feel into our pleasure. And this can bring up a lot of other emotions. So, just be mindful and gentle with yourself about that, and ease in. So, whatever level you are at with the ability to feel joy, to feel your own pleasure, take one more step. After all, it’s the season to be jolly, right? And in so doing, you can enhance the pleasure and the joy that you feel in your being, in your life. This is a beautiful way to love yourself.

Candice Wu 34:16

Alright, and we’re at number six. And this tip is about loving your inner child. For years, whenever I’d be at a family function or at home with my family, I would get into some experience that would trigger me into feeling like I was five years old again. I’m definitely not immune to it happening now. But I know much more what to do for myself and how to shift or take care of myself when that happens. So, let’s talk about how you can take care of yourself through that.

Candice Wu 34:49

When you feel that trigger, when you feel something upsetting happen, and it might feel like, “Oh, that thing again!” Like that’s happening at again, or we’re in the same fight that we’ve always had. Maybe that’s with friends, or maybe that’s with certain family members, this is a huge opportunity to give your younger self the loving support that you never got before. It’s to give your younger self that validation or the presence, the affection, or words of soothing and encouragement, assurance that you truly need. This might take a bit of time to sense into what part of you is reacting. So, when you have a reaction, and you have the time and space for yourself or you take a break from the interaction, what you can do is ask yourself, “What part of me is upset? Or what part of he’s angry or crying? Or reacting right now?

Candice Wu 36:00

And if you could imagine, in the scope of your life, what age does this feel like? How young does this feeling feel? Or is this my five years old, upset, a 12-year old teenager? And if you can picture that part of you, you can start to see what they’re reacting to, and why. This is all for healing and loving yourself so that this wound can resolve. But for the moment of tuning into your younger self, just acknowledging what’s there without changing it at all. Acknowledge the feelings that you have. And ask this younger part, “What do you need?” Do they need someone to just sit with them while they cry? Do they want to tell their story? Do they want to throw a tantrum and wreck the Christmas dinner or throw everything out the window and onto the floor?

Candice Wu 37:06

Anything goes here, it’s all in your imagination. And when you picture the thing that your younger self needs, the healing in the body can happen. It’s like the body doesn’t really know it’s not happening, because you can use your imagination as that healing occurs.

Candice Wu 37:32

Give your younger self that space or that kind of nurturance or maybe holding and soothing, the thing that this younger part of you never got and always wanted, the thing that you ache for. Our younger parts can still desire something from the ones that we love, especially our parents or very close people to us that we relied on, usually, it’s because we relied on them for safety. We had a dependency on them. And if there are things that we needed, ways that our nervous system needed to be supported or ways that we wanted them to be, then it can be really upsetting to that younger part of us and upsetting now if things are the same or if nothing’s changed from the past. But you can turn your inner child towards yourself instead, disconnect from the previous dependency that was on your parents or loved ones, and give that need to your younger self, the attunement that they needed or presence or empathy, give that to your younger self so that that pressure is off of those that are around you, and those that aren’t going to change perhaps or haven’t changed.

Candice Wu 39:03

You don’t have to ask them to change anymore, because you can give that to yourself, you can heal and fulfill that part of you that always needed that. And this can even greatly improve your relationship with your family, your loved ones in the present moment, because that pressure isn’t on them anymore to fulfill something and you. It asks them to be more than who they are when you demand that or feel that reaction. And without that tension, they actually might be who you wanted them to be in the first place. And also you get the chance to agree to who they are today or to love them in a different way. It can restore dignity, compassion, and respect, and allows people to be who they are to be themselves right now with all of their flaws, with all their protection and ways of being that might be triggering to a younger self. You can then receive the love that they do have to give rather than trying to pine for the thing that might be futile, actually.

Candice Wu 40:16

So, be gentle and compassionate with yourself if you do get triggered by a situation and gracefully take a break if you can. Picture your sweet little one that wants and give this little one what they ate for. And better yet, you can even prepare for that family dinner or experience with people you know you might be triggered by, by imagining what it is that you do get triggered by and giving that to yourself preemptively so that that healing can take place before it even happens. And you can walk in the door with your little one in hand. Supporting that younger self in case anything does happen, you can give them the hug to reassure them or internally let your younger self know, “I love you.”

Candice Wu 41:09

And now we’re coming to the seventh tip for the holidays, is support your body. Let your body move or be the way that can support you through this holiday season. Just don’t forget about your body. Move your body, maybe that’s exercising, dancing, yoga, or free movement, walking, or some activity that you love. Incorporate that into your time or do some supportive self-touch that helps your body be present and helps your nervous system to feel grounded. You can find a practice for that in the alignment podcast which is at CandiceWu.com/alignment. There’s something called Supportive Self-touch and it walks you right through that. You can follow along anytime, maybe while you’re on a break or in the morning, before you head to some social event or work.

Candice Wu 42:05

Your body might need to be still and to rest. Let yourself feel into that stillness, especially in the winter time, it’s a time of hibernation and reflection, that inner connection.

Candice Wu 42:18

What about a bath or making everything comfortable like having slippers and soft clothing. Your body is your ally, so, support it and it supports you, you support one another.

Candice Wu 42:33

I also have some marma points for you to practice, especially heart seven. That’s following the pinky line of your hand all the way to the wrist crease. And pressing there, you can find the link in my bio to see a picture of heart seven marma point. This is an energetic point that you can massage any time of the day. And it helps release anxiety, other emotions, helps you sleep better, and ground. So, I encourage you through this season to check into what your body needs.

Candice Wu 43:15

And the last tip for today is to take a break. And actually, I’m feeling myself record this podcast and needing a bit of a break. But it’s a good thing that we’re right at the end. Don’t be afraid to go away for some time, wherever you are and whoever you’re with, just take some time in a quiet room or in a bathroom, have a breather, might even go out to your car or take a walk, phone a friend, put your headphones on and turn on a soothing song or a meditation. Just take a break when you need to. Just let your eyes be soft and look around or close your eyes and rest.

Candice Wu 44:02

So, that’s the last tip I have for you. And I’ll just leave you with a few thoughts that our experience is our responsibility. You are the only one that can truly take care of your experience and take charge of your enjoyment. So, challenge yourself to find the ways that you need to love yourself this holiday season. And no matter what happens, I want to remind all of us to be gentle and tender with ourselves. Just being kind because a lot can happen through the holidays, and it’s just more chances for us to get to know ourselves, get to know where our needs are, what our desires are, and where our wounds are and how to heal them. So, all of it, and be such an interesting experience if you just stay in that witnessing part of yourself, witness what’s happening, witness how you feel and what you need.

Candice Wu 45:06

Happy Holidays to you all, and again, be sure to check out my Instagram if you want a day-to-day tip to follow and to remind yourself. Just find me at Embody Your Nature on Instagram, or on Facebook. I hope that this was interesting for you and that you can take these tips into the New Year. These are not just for the holidays, they’re for all time, designing your life, giving yourself permission to go at your own pace, to be unavailable if you need, moving your body, tuning into your state of being that you desire. All that’s just good nourishment for every day.

Candice Wu 45:48

Thanks so much for tuning in with me today and I look forward to seeing you next time. Just going to finish up my tea here.

Candice Wu 46:02

And if you want more information about me and my one-on-one sessions, or group work with family constellations, ancestral healing, embodiment, trauma healing, any of those, you can find me at CandiceWu.com. And you can also sign up for my bi-monthly newsletter at CandiceWu.com/embody. This is a newsletter where I offer self-love tips and workshops that are coming up, as well as resources and other healing tips that you can integrate into your life.

Candice Wu 46:38

And as we end today, I’m wishing you all that kind of respect for yourself, for your body, for your spirit and heart, that we spoke about in this podcast. Enjoy your holidays. I hope you enjoy your holidays the way that you want to and see you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00
Welcome to the episode about my personal stories of past life and past life trauma, the relevance of past life stories to being and loving yourself, and how you can begin to access the wisdom and parts of you that transcend time.

Candice Wu 0:16
Hello and welcome. You're listening to the Embody Podcast. A show about remembering and embodying your true nature, inner wisdom, embodied healing, and self-love.

Candice Wu 0:29
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 0:51
The Embody Podcast is made possible by my supporters on Patreon. I am so grateful for the people that are donating some amount of money even if it's $1 a month, it helps out a lot with the backend production and all of the little details that go into creating each episode.

Candice Wu 1:11
Thank you so much to the people who just joined on who are contributing not only their money, but just to know you're out there, your energy in support of the podcast is just so touching and means a lot to me. If you're interested in checking out how you can contribute or support, you can go to my page at CandiceWu.com/Patreon. And on that page, you'll also find that there are some gifts for you if you make a donation at certain amounts. So if you're interested in something like a personalized healing experience, that I intuit just for you based on what you're going through, or what you'd like to create for yourself in the next coming months. I record those and send them straight to your email or if you'd like to be part of the Embodied Group Healing Session that happens monthly, or the Q and A or anything else that's on there, just check it out.

Candice Wu 2:10
And I'm just so grateful that all of you are out there listening and sharing the podcast to people that you think might be interested. All of that just goes a long way and really allows the spark to grow. Thank you.

Candice Wu 2:26
So as we jump into the episode today, I just want to give you an update on where I am. So if you love hearing about my travels and what's going on. And right now I am still in Spain. I went to Tarifa for some time. Tarifa is one of the most southern points of Spain. That's right next to and across the water from Morocco, which was just incredible to see that Morocco was just like across this water, it looks like I could even swim across and it was magnificent.

Candice Wu 2:58
So I was there for some time and experienced some challenges with finding the right place to live where I could have silence and Wi-Fi and feel like I was nourishing myself. So after learning a few hard lessons, my partner and I decided to come back over to near Malaga a little bit outside of it, where we're near the coast. And as I look out right now I can see the water right there, it's sunny, the skyline is meeting up with the water, both different shades of blue. It's beautiful. And between here and the water it's just a bunch of small, little white, Spanish homes with that sort of red terracotta roofing that waves over it. There are lots of trees, including some palm trees just waving in the wind. And it's a beautiful day, even though it's winter here but quite mild.

Candice Wu 4:01
Lately, I've been exploring and working with the theme of pleasure and how much pleasure I'm allowed to have. And my mental mind says all of it. But how does that play out into reality? Can I make it a reality? That I do things for just the sake of pleasure and joy? And how much of my time can be that? And how much of what I do is that? Can I connect everything to pleasure and joy? And what doesn't connect? What needs to shift? What can just fall off the list because it's not necessary anymore, or it's not important anymore?

Candice Wu 4:46
And I'm also exploring pleasure in relationship, clearing up and completing some beliefs that I've had about being able to have pleasure in relationship especially in relation to masculine energy. And all of this pleasure exploration relates to the stories I want to tell you today about riding horses, and it relates to the desire to be with horses more often. I just feel such a strong connection with horses. It's like something deep in my being that loves them and wants to feel communication with them and have this inner dialogue that strengthens itself through being around them. And it goes as far as just wanting to spend like all day with horses and asking myself how can I make that a reality? And do I want to?

Candice Wu 5:45
So the stories today I want to tell you about past life trauma, I think, connect right up with that love for horses. And I think that this will come clear to me as the week's go on. And as I share this story with you today. Is any of this resonating with you? Do you explore what brings you joy and allow yourself that just for joy sake, not for any other purpose. But what brings you pleasure? What brings you the feeling of complete happiness for yourself?

Candice Wu 6:28
You think these are essential questions, and it's the guide to who we are, and what we deeply want in this life. So let's jump into the topic of this episode which is just so yummy and juicy.

Candice Wu 6:43
I've been interested in past lives since early High School. And the first encounter that I had with some stories around past lives were in the book Many Lives, Many Masters by Dr. Brian Weiss, and he is a psychiatrist who became interested and fascinated with past life stories and reincarnation because of a client that he had who he called Catherine in his book.

Candice Wu 7:10
And he was very scientific apparently and didn't really believe much other than what was scientifically proven and credible in the Western science world. And so it's just quite an interesting story to hear how he went from there to delving into this client's experience with her. She had anxiety attacks and some other symptoms where once she revealed certain memories that were not related to this life, those symptoms went away and that sent Dr. Weiss into this fascinating world of looking into past lives as a reality and or modality for healing.

Candice Wu 8:04
This book was fascinating, but what really got me hooked and starting to believe in past lives is this story about Shanti Devi. I want to share with you this story which is reprinted on Carol Bowman's website. Carol Bowman is a past life therapist that I've also read about and have been interested in. But this story is posted on her website and it just touched me in a way that got me believing something.

Candice Wu 8:37
So the story goes that Shanti Devi was born in 1926 in Delhi. By the time she was four years old, she began talking about her husband and her children and this town called Mathura. I'm not sure if I'm going to say all the names in the story very accurately, but I'll try my best. She spoke of the cloth shop that she owned with her husband, her son, She spoke of connections and incidences in her life in Mathura with her husband. And during meals, she would say that she eat different kinds of sweets in Mathura and sometimes talked about the different dresses she used to wear while her own mother was dressing her. And then she'd always mention really distinctive features about her husband like a wart on his left cheek and reading glasses that he wore. And she even knew about certain locations like that their cloth shop was located in front of a specific temple.

Candice Wu 9:40
Her parents thought it was a fantasy for some time and just really didn't take much notice. But by the time she was six years old, and she continued to give detailed accounts of parts of their lives, especially about her death following childbirth, they were unsure of what to do. And this mystery began to open even deeper.

Candice Wu 10:06
The parents started to wonder if these memories were part of a past life, and began to open that up. So it was about eight or nine years old when she insisted that she go to this village and to see her husband and her family. It was customary in India that wives don't utter the names of their husbands and so she wouldn't even say her husband's name. But one of her teachers told her that if she told him her husband's name, that he would take her there. So she did. And they made arrangements that one of her husband's cousins would come to Delhi. And upon his arrival, she recognized him as her husband's cousin and gave him many details about the house in Mathura and her husband as well as where she had buried some money.

Candice Wu 11:01
So with that, her husband decided to come visit. And even upon the visit, when the initial cousin decided to introduce him, the husband as someone else, she blushed and said no, this is my husband it's not the older brother of this man. So this man Kedarnath, again I don't know if I'm saying the names right, but doing my best. He asked her all these questions and she answered all of them correctly as far as their life together previously, and what she remembered. And he was completely convinced when she told him about the story of how they managed to become pregnant, because she had arthritis and was not totally physically in good shape. She told him the story of how they had intercourse and how they managed to become pregnant. And after that Kedarnath was convinced that this, in fact, was his wife.

Candice Wu 12:23
The money that she had buried was in fact, not there anymore, because her husband said he had taken it out. But through the course of their connection and meeting with the rest of the family that she claimed was hers. Everyone was crying and feeling that connection, it seemed of a knowing that they were family. And she was able to name all the different people that were there and recognize who they were. She was able to recognize her husband's favorite meals and dishes. And it seems that the family was quite convinced that she was who she said she was, who was named Lugdi in that past life. She had died after giving birth to a second child, the first child was stillborn. And the second child was C-section and nine days later she died.

Candice Wu 13:09
So here I'm not asking you to believe this story or believe in past lives at all. But I just wanted to share how I got into my curiosity of past lives. And actually, I think in that moment, when I read that story, I believed it. Her stories spread all over the country and media and Mahatma Gandhi heard about it and called her. And at that time, he even appointed 15 prominent people, including national leaders, members of the media, and researchers to look into her story.

Candice Wu 13:45
So there are always skeptics and people that are going to be cutting down her story. But many people do believe in it. And for me, it just sparked something quite magical. The fact that a four-year-old child was speaking about her past life, her husband and children and all the details of this village without ever having an experience with it in this life, just made sense to me. Why are there certain parts of us that seem so developed? Or are super gifts that perhaps we never cultivated in this life? Why do we have certain fears that are so peculiar, deep? And what about memories and strong connections to certain experiences or cultures.

Candice Wu 14:31
So what I've seen over and over and my experience and my work with people and healing is that over and over, time and space don't matter to the soul and heart. I've experienced where we can be bound to an experience that is incomplete. And no matter how many years go by, it doesn't change. People say time heals. But I don't believe that. Time can be correlated with healing that it can happen at the same time. And sometimes, just leaving things and letting the body's intelligence heal can be the most useful and powerful way to heal. But when something is so traumatic or overwhelming, that our physiology, our energy, and body cannot heal it we've we get stuck. And that experience holds over time. And it doesn't matter how much time goes by, it doesn't change, or it can even grow stronger, so that you listen.

Candice Wu 15:34
So the unconscious pulls the memories for things that are long forgotten in the conscious mind. But the feeling sense and the context still live in us because they haven't completed themselves or they need to be known in some way or brought back to our entirety to our wholeness. They're stored for later understanding or reclaiming or completion.

Candice Wu 16:02
We see that with trauma in our personal lives where certain experiences that didn't get to be completed, whether that's a need to find safety, or a reaching out movement that didn't get to happen with a loved one, early tell experiences, all these are still waiting for us to be healed and to be recovered. And that trajectory of completion spans across lives if you do believe in this.

Candice Wu 16:33
In family constellations work, I see time and again that the soul doesn't care about time. So a hurt that was experienced by grandmother, or great grandmother, even farther back, can pass down the generations and be repeated, or someone later in the later generations can connect with this because the soul of the family wants to heal. And it's all for the purpose of being complete and whole and knowing all the aspects of us and moving through the story. So that we're back to who we are, we're back to love and freedom or back to the source of everything, the connection, and oneness.

Candice Wu 17:26
When that is disconnected or split off or undone, incomplete, our soul and psyche want for this to complete. It wants to bring us to the experience that will tell us and remind us of what did happen. So that we can restore the love that's flowing through all of us and with family constellations flowing through the lineage. So that's one place I've seen where time doesn't matter, the heartbreak of Great Grandma, when she lost a baby, it can flow downward. And that heartbreak doesn't care if it happened 100 years ago. It's still there if it wasn't felt at the time.

Candice Wu 18:15
With the modality of family constellations, I've also worked with past lives. And when people see a past life or piece of their soul constellated in this format, there's some resonating factor that they have felt, wow, this really pertains to be now or this somehow makes sense in me. So the things that don't make sense in our mind, we don't always like to accept. But when we feel something that we know has something to do with us, you can't mistake that. It just doesn't always match up with our logical sense that wants to clarify everything in a concrete way.

Candice Wu 19:04
So I think if you're open to past life trauma or if you are interested in it, or have already delved into it, that is a key factor, letting go of the need to explain it all, and for all to make logical sense. And tuning into the way the heart and spirit and soul make sense. And that is through the way of love that is through who we are and our way of being. And when things violate that or hurt that or get stuck about that, we want to find reconnection again.

Candice Wu 19:46
So why did I want to bring this up now and today? Well, first, it's a topic that I haven't talked too much about. And if you've been listening to the podcasts, there have been times I've mentioned either past life experience of mine or the idea of past lives. And then I always say this disclaimer of if you believe in it.

Candice Wu 20:06
Well, today I want to share that I really do believe in it. And, it has helped many of my clients that do believe in it. And if you don't, I do have clients that don't believe in a past life. That's okay too. Because the patterns exist whether or not we believe in something before this life.

Candice Wu 20:27
So why I want to bring this up today is actually that you might have heard in a couple podcasts ago that I was riding and I fell off my horse twice. I was practicing cantering. And this was still pretty new to me at that time. I was taking lessons in Michigan before I left for Europe and was just beginning to canter with the horse that I've been riding on for a couple of months. So I was used to being on that horse and being on a much bigger horse. And the first time with this horse and a new teacher as well. It was pretty scary. So I fell off twice, the same exact way, rounding a corner while cantering. I was losing my balance. And I just couldn't really even see, I felt like things were blurry.

Candice Wu 21:20
Both falls were a bit scary and startling and painful. But in the grand scheme, I knew it wasn't that bad. But knowing what I know through Somatic Experiencing and how the nervous system can hold trauma if it doesn't get to complete the experience of coming back to safety in the moment or later, I just stayed with myself and did exactly what I knew how to do with letting my body take the lead and take it's time to come back up. I wasn't needing to get up and get back on it right away. So I just did it slowly. And what I did feel somewhat ready, I got back on.

Candice Wu 22:05
Well, when I got home that day, I was in a lot of pain, even though the falls were quite minor. And what we know through Somatic Experiencing is that, when falls are minor falls or accidents, they can actually leave a much greater impact on the nervous system. Symptoms can appear later that we just don't think twice about. Don't think that they're related, but they do stem from these little falls over and over. And the body repeats itself in terms of the way you fell. If it didn't feel like it resolved itself in coming back to safety or something around that experience.

Candice Wu 22:51
As I was working with myself with these falls, I became very well aware of how numb and disconnected and overwhelmed I was feeling while I was getting ready to move into the canter from a trot with the horse. And as I even recalled the experience, it was like I couldn't see anything around me, couldn't have any clarity in my vision. And all of that is to show how overwhelmed my nervous system was. And likely in a phrase or a tonic and mobility state where I just froze up and I wasn't really in my body. And my body capacity also shut down. So it wasn't really able to even be fully present to what my body needed to do even though my instructor was clearly telling me what to do, I couldn't even register.

Candice Wu 23:50
So I combed through this experience several times. And so much of that fear moved out of my body tingling and heat, and tears. And yet, as many times as I went through it, there still seemed to be a giant fear lurking behind, I just felt it. I felt like this is much more than these two falls could have warranted. This has to do with something much deeper.

Candice Wu 24:22
And for me, I know that experiences can layer on top of one another experiences through the ancestry or our personal history, the collective past life. So all these were coming into my awareness, and I like to go to the root of some things so that it can clear up deeply. And as much of it as possible can clear out of my body and my system so that I can feel safe and whole again.

Candice Wu 24:56
So it wasn't until I was working with my healing coach, the healer that I work with. Suddenly she just said, “Candice, do you feel that this has to do with past life trauma?”. And as soon as she said that, it seemed like something in me was validated. And something that I just was on the tip of my tongue. And I just burst into tears. And all this fear and terror just rose up into my body and started to move. And I said yes. And it just seemed immediately to release. The next question she asked me was, is it necessary to know the details? Because sometimes it has been necessary. Sometimes the story does need to be told or heard or acknowledged.

Candice Wu 25:47
So I asked myself, and the feeling sense I got was no, I don't need to know the details. I just needed to feel through that fear and recognize that it was something to do with the past life.

Candice Wu 26:01
Well, the story goes on where my healer says, “Okay, I have this sense right now and can I tell you the image I see?” She's super intuitive and I believe she's quite clairvoyant. And she's been really right on about a lot of images and senses that she's had about past life, ancestry, my personal life.

Candice Wu 26:24
So, of course, I wanted to hear what she said to me was, “Candice, this is the image I got. That in the past life, you were being told by many people around you what to do. And they kept feeding you information, and you did not like it, it didn't seem to align with you. And it was really challenging. And so you got really stubborn and decided to go your own way. But you got in trouble. And so you came in with this conflict of do I follow myself? Or do I follow others?”

Candice Wu 27:03
That even is a question shows the polarity of that energy that this conflict that existed in me, because of course, we can listen to both, we can tune in both ways and find that helpful. But somehow this was so against me in a way where I felt it was that I got so stubborn and then it led me to travel.

Candice Wu 27:27
And as she told me this, I just cried even more, because, at the end of my lesson with this horse Jack, he was so stubborn. He did not want to do anything I asked him to do and this was just grooming. This was just taking off the saddle and brushing him, like he just was so unhappy and stubborn and didn't want to move if I asked him to. And I didn't quite understand it. But somehow we were quite connected in that experience.

Candice Wu 28:01
And when she said that I had this experience and was really stubborn about it. More emotions in my body released at that point, something clicked. And it was clear that the horse had picked up on that energy that was coming through around me being stubborn, and he was becoming stubborn. And it was just quite magical how this all began to unfold.

Candice Wu 28:28
As the days went on after that, I felt like I was grieving I had this sense that I had died while on the horse. Which wasn't such a bad fate, I guess, you know, there are worse ways to die. But something about the experience of that felt so tragic and painful and terrifying.

Candice Wu 28:51
And so just to recognize that the feeling was that I died while on that horse seemed important for something in me to heal. And for me, it's not so important to know whether or not this was all true. We don't need to dig into the facts or, you know, try to figure it out. I don't even know where I would get that evidence. But the evidence I have is that my body just felt like yes. And even though I was clearing up a lot of the fear and the trauma through Somatic Experiencing and what my body needed in the present form, recognizing that had to do with something way back seem to give much more healing and release.

Candice Wu 29:40
So following this, about three days later, I wrote again, and I was still scared. I didn't want to canter with this horse. I just wasn't used to riding such a big horse. But I did feel like the fear had moved quite a bit. And that had gotten to the bottom of it.

Candice Wu 29:59
So recently, I started to ride again, after taking about two weeks off, and I don't have that same amount of fear. I think I just have what feels appropriate to this situation in time, of course. I don't really want to fall off a horse. And so my body is a little bit scared. But the amount of fear that seemed quite unreasonable to the present life, that seems all gone. But not just that, what I've gained from this was a lot of wisdom about, I don't even know, in a way it feels like something is integrated in me around knowing and trusting myself. What's happening at the moment is that I tend to forget what has healed and what came from it after it happens. And that's how I know it's cleared. But now that I'm talking about it, I do remember much more. That what I gained from recovering this past life experience and honoring the grief was a lot of grief moved out of me, a lot of fear moved out.

Candice Wu 31:10
And that wisdom of being able to trust my knowing, my deep knowing of something for myself, is being restored and it's still continuing. But I felt a greater sense of trust in myself and knowing what to do for myself. And even being able to tap into the wisdom of knowing how to be with horses and connecting with them. Because I always have felt that there's some deep connection that I have with horses. But I wasn't sure how to access that.

Candice Wu 31:49
And this experience has helped me to trust in the fact that somewhere, my body knows, my soul knows how to be with horses, and how to trust my decisions. Also the stubbornness, I can use that tool if I need to. And I can see where my stubbornness came from, and release some self-judgment about how stubborn I have been in the past and some of the situations that I've caught myself in because of stubbornness.

Candice Wu 32:21
And then all of this moving through, I also remember the first time I saw a horse wasn't that long ago. The first time that I was up close to a horse and working with a horse, I actually was scared. I felt like this was such a big animal and so much power. So with connecting with past experiences, I feel so much for you and it gives me a lot of clarity and support and validation in who I am today. The things that I experienced, as well as feeling more in myself.

Candice Wu 32:55
There are other experiences that I felt very strongly about as well.

Candice Wu 33:14
I read this book about a young girl in the Holocaust. And it was not a true story. But when I read it, I just felt so enamored with this story. So touched in a very deep way. And I felt like it resonated with who I was. Well, we could say symbolically, yes. That resonated with my experience of hiding myself and not being able to be fully seen. I was a really shy girl and very afraid to be myself. I didn't feel supported in being myself.

Candice Wu 33:38
Well, where did that come from? Who knows? But I do want to share that I felt that I was connected in some deeper, deeper way to the Holocaust. And in later years, I actually had dreams where my best friend and I would be escaping by train or something. But we were escaping the Holocaust. And when I woke up from those dreams, I just felt like that wasn't just some imaginative story. This is something very real to me.

Candice Wu 34:13
So who knows what that was. But I still do feel that connection. Although that connection has decreased for me, I still feel very strongly about the pain of the Holocaust, and what went on for a lot of Jews and also all the people that were connected with a Holocaust in any way, a very strong passive experience that seems to completely connect with who I am today as a healer, that I have mentioned before in the podcast. I think it was the one about Spiritual Crisis Episode 13. But being a shaman and being a witch in a past life, I'm not sure if it's important, which it was, although I think that I've had different lives as healers.

Candice Wu 35:02
So this particular feeling is around being exiled as a witch, as someone who has a lot of healing power. And knowing and it was really gifted, that people got scared, and that wasn't allowed. And I was condemned for those powers. And I did a lot of healing about a year or two ago around this where it felt like my leg had been cut off. I even had physical pain in this life around it. And also experiences of being whipped and burned.

Candice Wu 35:48
So those experiences seem completely foreign to this life. I was never abused in that way. In this life, I was never physically hurt in this life at all even in my lineage. I don't know any experiences of my family lineage where they were whipped like that, or where they had limbs cut off.

Candice Wu 36:15
So primarily when I sense into my past life experiences, it just has the sense and I trust it. And as I follow it, it leads me somewhere else to more of myself and healing.

Candice Wu 36:47
So I'm not so attached to to the story of what did happen or who I was, even though it's still kind of fun to hold those or to tell a little bit about those. But more so with the intention of freeing myself of the ways of the past or the ways that I got stuck. Whenever there's something traumatic, we get stuck. And so it frees me up to be more of who I am today. So with this experience of being a witch, and whipped and hurt, for my powers, I came into this life, whatever life that was so I'm not concerned with the order of things.

Candice Wu 37:11
But in this life, I felt very much like spirit and emotions, healing powers, intuition, psychic powers, and energy work all of that in for most of my life, probably 25 to 28 years of my life. That was something that felt like a No, it felt like taboo, and it felt like I would be judged for it. And even early in my career as the therapist, I wasn't sure that I could unleash those powers and bring those powers to the work because Western science and the way of research-based studies and practices, it just didn't feel like it had a place.

Candice Wu 38:06
So while all that's true, there is judgment for certain alternative practices, or indigenous practices, or healing powers, there's always skepticism and people who perhaps abuse it or are not really using it for good or for healing, or for pure purposes that exists. But for me, my experience was so much that I would judge myself and I would keep those powers down and put them away to the point where it felt like bringing them forward would bring me death. It was that scary.

Candice Wu 38:47
And so, of course, bringing that forward now in this life, in this time period isn't all that scary? Like it wouldn't bring me death. And so when I experienced that something feels that life-threatening, I know that it must be because of something else that wants to tell its story now through me, whether it was past life in my soul, or through my lineage, or through the archetypal energy of the collective, so something wants to come through.

Candice Wu 39:20
The other piece I'll mention is that I've worked with my feet a lot. My ankles are not the strongest. And I've had to work a lot with what's been the blockage there and strengthening that through themes of the root energy, first Chakra, which relates to community and the way that I belong, the safety. So you can see how all of that connects to being exiled and whipped and almost killed off.

Candice Wu 39:58
But this, when it got brought to my attention, just seem to touch the exact right place in me that perhaps in my heritage, being Chinese, that Chinese foot binding affected the women before me and therefore affected me. And that has to do with cultural energy and the lineage. But someone who does believe in past lives once suggested to me that perhaps I was someone in my ancestry or that I was somebody who was a woman who had my feet bound.

Candice Wu 40:37
So if you're not aware of this practice, Chinese women have been binding their feet for a long time. It doesn't, I don't know of accounts of it happening anymore. But part of the story is that women bound their feet so that they could find a man to marry because it would make them more beautiful. And it was seen as the higher class. And the more a woman would be beautiful if they were delicate, and had small feet.

Candice Wu 41:13
So there's obviously a lot tied up with that, the relationship of men and women, masculine and feminine, and power involved in that. But there is a strong connection with me and where that came from. I don't know exactly. But I have worked with that in my own healing. And it is brought me a lot more strength in my feet physically. But more so, the reclaiming of I have a right to be here in my full self. I am beautiful with my whole body and the way I am versus having to change myself, for anyone, for a man. So just wanted to mention that piece as well, the crossover of lineage and culture with a past life, perhaps.

Candice Wu 42:07
So now that I've shared some of my stories, you might be wondering, why is this important or relevant? Does it really matter? Why do we need to go there? And as I said earlier, in my opinion, it's not important to go to past life experiences, to dwell on the past or to get stuck there. But for me, it's number one kind of interesting, because it shows me all these dimensions of myself. It helps me feel connected to more people in difference. But I think the biggest thing that it can be relevant to life now is that it has everything to do with the way of being that we are now. It can relate to patterns of the way you are or habits, fears that you have, ways of moving around the world, even physically, as well as how you feel inside yourself, could relate to situations that happened in a past life that were tragic or traumatic, or where you died suddenly, and life got cut short.

Candice Wu 43:20
And so the beliefs that you have now, whether they're related to who you are, or how the world works, whether they're related to money, or relationships, you're worth, or ability to love, or who you can love, what you can love, how you can be all of those can connect up with past life experiences. But it's only if you're curious, and it's only if you want to go there with your healing.

Candice Wu 43:48
It can be incredibly freeing to know that this happened in a past life and that's what reverberated into this life. I can complete it if it needs something. And I don't need to repeat it. And in fact, it can bring me some piece of wisdom. Usually, it can bring back a piece of a gift that I might need in this life. For example, the knowledge and wisdom and the knowing, the communication with horses that I so desire, it's already there, you just need to open that up. And I think that the fear that was related to the past life trauma needed to clear out before I could truly embrace the rest of the wisdom.

Candice Wu 44:37
So if you do tap into a past life, it can free you from the binds of having to repeat that pattern, to repeat the suffering. It's there so you can learn something more about yourself. All of the dimensions of who you are want to be acknowledged and past lives can give some key to that.

Candice Wu 44:58
If we can see the soul as the expanse of our wisdom, as the expanse of our consciousness, rather than wisdom only being found in this life only, we can gain so much more. Because we can only do so much in one life. But we can use all sorts of parts of us different tools for different purposes. And they can come in and weave in and bring us even more in this life now.

Candice Wu 45:26
It's a combination of energy, over time, a collection of energy and ways of knowledge and wisdom that can be used for eternity. But we don't necessarily want to repeat the suffering. And so by going to that experience, if there was a trauma, you can clear that up so that the wisdom can be gained.

Candice Wu 45:48
And I think the biggest thing that working with past life experiences helps me with is that I can love more of myself. Not only more of myself, but I can be clearer and freer and more authentic to my spirit. Because the soul carries all sorts of attachments and experiences. The spirit which is the energy of creation and oneness, that energy can move through me with more ease. And I can be more of my essential being.

Candice Wu 46:24
So truly loving myself in a deeper way. Loving who I am, rather than all of the traumas that happened to me or all the fears that developed over time, all the distortions that can be in more truth about myself.

Candice Wu 46:44
So how do you know something is a past life trauma? Or how do you know about your past lives and access it? Who can you go to for support with it? And how do you open this up for yourself? This was a question that was posed to me just recently, and it was just such perfect timing of course.

Candice Wu 47:07
There are all sorts of healers and therapists, as well as intuitive that can support you in validating what you already know deep down or opening up what might be there in the unconscious. Some people use hypnotist and past life regression. Some people work with past life, and reincarnation and experiences of past life. Shamans, and also people who read Akashic records can tune into something of past life.

Candice Wu 47:46
This is something that I've developed for myself, because I've been curious about it, but just trusting my own senses and my intuition, and allowing the images and dreams, and sense of something to come through. No matter if it makes sense or not, in my logical mind, but to let the soul give some semblance of a different kind of logic, the logic of love.

Candice Wu 48:15
So you don't necessarily need someone to read your past life for you. And it might not even be relevant. You might be curious about different aspects of past life, and find that it has some relevance or not. It can open up something and support you in realizing something for yourself. But it might be interesting to come from what is interesting, or can support you in yourself now, and to see what relates to that so that it's relevant to your specific growth in the present day.

Candice Wu 48:51
Over time, I've been able to just sense into my own past life and distinguish whether it's past life or stuff with my lineage or personal to this life. And a lot of times it has that crossover, as I said. But I've been also able to intuit or sense that with others and for others with their collaboration. If someone's open to that experience, it can really illuminate very easily.

Candice Wu 49:21
But what I encourage you to do if you are interested, is to open up that trust for yourself. And just scan your world and your psyche for the images and messages that you have received, the little inkling that something is resonating with you about some experience, some image, some thought, some new story, you heard, that's always an interesting piece of what you latch on to when things come your way. Just start listening as one way to let your unconscious began to speak to you, so that you can learn more.

Candice Wu 50:04
I definitely encourage you to work with your own Embodiment, meaning, be in your body, take care of your body but also let your awareness go into your body, whether that's through yoga and movement. But do it with awareness. Be aware of what's going on inside, tune into your sensations, your emotions, your movement, and what the body tells you. As well as feeling that you are in your body as much as you can through the day. And doing healing work like Somatic Experiencing or other body-centered practices that clear up any numbness and nervous system, fight and flight responses that can get in the way of feeling embodied and enjoying being in your body.

Candice Wu 51:00
Another thing you can do is connect with your inner knowing and your inner wisdom. As I mentioned, you can be open to the little messages you get, that's part of it. That's one way of doing it. And another way of doing it is sitting with yourself and connecting with yourself, loving yourself by listening inside and talking to yourself like you're a friend connecting with a friend. And just asking, you know what is there to know right now, we can't exactly pressure past life experiences to come through because they will come through when they do and there may be some sense in you when something does come through that it's related to a past life.

Candice Wu 51:49
Another thing you can do is just open to seeing the world and your life like a dream, or a painting something artful that isn't a coloring book with a set of guidelines of mental explanations and logic and direction. But an unfolding source of knowing that offers messages, wisdom, and knowledge of a different kind, through pictures, through a flush of your face, through a gut reaction.

Candice Wu 52:27
Starting to trust that your body can tell you more than your mind might be able to about your experience, your whole experience. And let things that don't necessarily make sense to your mental mind be explored. Let them be honored through drawing or journaling. Or just letting your imagination go with it and seeing where that takes you. That's exactly the way I discovered certain experiences and let the healing happen.

Candice Wu 52:59
We can trust our inner being to show us a clue. And if we follow that clue, and honor it and acknowledge it, respect it. We take that seriously enough, then it'll show us more.

Candice Wu 53:15
So try this out for yourself. I would love to hear how this works out for you. And what starts to open up for you is you allow these awarenesses is to come into your being, allowed us to open up for yourself. And also, if you've already delved into the world of past life, I would love to hear if this was supportive to you or brought up something new for you.

Candice Wu 53:42
And if you have past life experiences that come up or ideas, questions, curiosities, feel free to connect with me, email me or message me in some way. And I would love to hear from you. If you're someone who would like support with this, to have validation or go deeper, to really use past life experiences to heal, feel free to reach out to me I would love to work with you one on one or you can join the Embodied healing group that can support that as well or I'm happy to give referrals to you of people that are either in your area or online that might support you as well.

Candice Wu 54:21
As we're ending this podcast today, I'm just smiling because, for me, this is really fun. It's really exciting when we can come from the angle of love, curiosity, and embracing of all the ways that our inner being tries to show us wisdom, wisdom that we knew long ago, wisdom that we are just learning right now. But it's so fun to collect all these parts of us that can bring us forward into life and where we can feel even more like ourselves.

Candice Wu 54:59
Thanks for listening in today and just sending you lots of love and wishing you that you love yourself even more deeply today.

Candice Wu 55:10
Before you go today, I would love to invite you to be part of the Embody community, you can receive my newsletter every other week. This is full of self-love support and healing tips as well as updates about what's going on with me and the themes that I'm exploring. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/Embody or you can join the Facebook group. It's called the Embody community where I offer about 5 to 10 minute videos of healing experiences or meditations that tap into self-love or being in your body healing, anxiety, all sorts of things, feel free to join me there and tune into that safe space where we can support each other in healing and loving ourselves.

Candice Wu 56:00
Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm just enjoying the candle that's sitting next to me and thinking of all of you out there that are listening. I appreciate each and every one of you. And I love the messages that I get from time to time, just let me know that you're out there. Take care and I'll see you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

This episode is about how to commit so that the universe responds, and how to listen as well as collaborate with the universe to manifest what you want in your life.

Candice Wu 0:13

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 0:49

Before we begin the episode, I want to just give a shoutout to all of those who are supporting me on Patreon. This episode is made possible by those supporters and I appreciate you all so much for just a very small amount can support all the backend production and polishing and creation of these podcasts and all the healing experiences that go out. And I would be so grateful if you considered donating to my work in that way. Some of you have already taken advantage of the $15 a month donation which gets you a personalized meditation based on exactly what you need in your life quarterly. So, check that out if you’re interested, and soon there will be a couple of new offers there for people who are interested in contributing. You can find all that at CandiceWu.com/patreon.

Candice Wu 1:48

Hey, everyone, welcome back. It’s so great to have you here. To give you a bit of an update about where I am in the world, I am still in Michigan in the States, and enjoying my time I’m here soaking up nature, being at the lake, doing ballet with one of my favorite teachers, and riding horses. There are tons of horse riding stables around here, and I just love being with the horses. I hadn’t written for about nine days, and while my legs weren’t sore anymore, which is a good thing. I was just craving to be with the horses, and I even started to get grouchy. And there are probably many reasons for that. But by the time I got to riding and being with them, I felt so much better.

Candice Wu 2:36

Do you have something like that, something that you just crave and nourish yourself with so that you feel like yourself, and it fills you up and gives you inspiration for the week? What is that thing that you really need to feel good? Feel free to share that with me in an email or if this is on social media just posting there, I’d love to hear from you as always. I’ll take another two weeks here in Michigan before I head out to Utah for my retreat, The Soul Body Women’s Retreat, which is in Zion National Park, and I’ll have a couple of about 10 days before the retreat to completely soak in nature and nourish myself so that I can feel very refreshed and rejuvenated before the retreat. There’s still room on the retreat if you’re even interested at all or feel called to it, feel free to reach out to me to talk about it.

Candice Wu 3:32

So, let’s jump into the episode. The a{Live} now series is a podcast series within the embodied podcast where I talk about things that are channeling through me now, things that are alive in me that I’m working with, transmuting the energy around or fumbling with actually. So, just hustling with certain ideas and themes that come through me. The a{Live} now series is about my personal stories with that, as well as some thoughtful ideas for you if it resonates with you. Today’s topic of commitment and conviction starts out with a story of me riding.

Candice Wu 4:01

So, this is about the fourth time I’ve ridden with this one gray looking horse named Sage. And the first time I met Sage, he and I just eyed each other, we weren’t quite sure of each other, I was a bit intimidated by him. And he seemed to reflect that same amount of anxiety, I had heard and understood that horses reflect your emotions or respond to them, and show you something within yourself. And that was definitely happening. I was quite intimidated. And by the fourth time, we were doing okay, we started to collaborate pretty well, we could walk, trot, stop and move around. And so it was a bit unexpected when he started bucking a bit and he started slowing down and not responding to me when I’d give him certain commands or cues.

Candice Wu 4:09

I was taught to give him a bit of a kick. And if he didn’t respond, then a kick and a tap on the shoulder if he was slowing down when he wasn’t supposed to during our trot. And apparently, he had had a really rough day with a child that morning and didn’t seem to be cooled off from that. But I didn’t know until probably about the end of the session with him. At the same time, there was another student who was younger, about 12 years old, riding this horse and getting very upset with his horse. I don’t know what was happening. But while I was writing sage, I remember feeling, let me just stay focused, even though there’s a little bit of chaos going around me, going on around me.

Candice Wu 6:00

She was, the girl was shrieking. And then the teacher was upset with her for screaming while on the horse. And so, I just stayed the course and focused, and stayed in line and tune with my horse. And that seemed to go okay. But about halfway through, the teacher decided to tell that girl and that horse to go and end the session for her. So, this horse and girl left. And as we, my horse and I came around the arena, and we saw this happening, the next round after that, Sage started to slow up as he approached the door and drag his feet and get a little grumbly. And I did the things that I do with him to tell him to keep going. I gave him a kick, I gave him a little tap and stayed focused.

Candice Wu 6:59

The next round of this, my teacher saw me and said, “Candice, you have to commit.” And here I thought I was here, here I thought I was focused and committed and clearly saying keep going. And something in her felt that I wasn’t because obviously my horse wasn’t really listening to me. And he was just doing his own thing. So, somehow, while on the horse, I had to figure out what it really meant to commit. And to do it in the way that she said, “Candice, you have to commit.” So, I drew up all the energy I could, I drew up all the parts of me that were just worried or thinking about what might happen if I couldn’t get him to listen to me, the fears or doubts I had, I just dropped all of that focused all my energy and thoughts on we are going and we’re not going to stop.

Candice Wu 7:54

Well, that seemed to work for about a round or two. And after the third round, he did not want to do that with me. He was clearly telling me, he was annoyed, he started bucking and stopping, moving his head back to kind of flip the reins a bit. And I didn’t know what to do. So, I just asked him to stop. And my teacher said, “No, we are going to keep going.” And the commitment, the conviction in her voice got me to stay the course. And she knows how to work with this horse. So, I just followed her lead. I have a whole conflict in me about how we work with horses and the history of that, of abuse and instilling fear.

Candice Wu 8:42

So, that’s a whole other conversation, but that is part of what comes in to play here. Where I don’t want to be a part of that, necessarily. And yet, I am and yet I am involved with riding this horse who’s been trained in perhaps a way that could have involved that I don’t know. So, back to the writing, we are going and he bucks again, and she tells me, “You have to growl at him.” And so, I’m like, “Okay, I know how to growl, I can do this.

Candice Wu 9:17

PS.: I didn’t always know how to growl I and it almost sounded silly. The first time someone asked me to growl or encouraged me to, and it really was the work of somatic experiencing that helped me develop that part of me that could actually show my teeth and my claws, and act like an animal, acts with anger or the energy of sternness, through that sort of sound and movement.

Candice Wu 9:51

So, here I am growling at this horse, and he’s grumbling back at me, we’re just not happy with each other, necessarily. But I did my best to stay connected with him. And we just did a couple more laps and called it a day. But what I learned from this, from the way my teacher was telling me to stay committed, was actually similar to how I learned to work with kids, when I was a teacher.

Candice Wu 10:23

If you’ve worked with kids, or you have kids yourself, you’ve probably experienced them pushing your boundaries, testing where their limits are, and sensing into where your weak points are. And if they push those buttons, I have found that it’s best to stay unruffled and to stay clear, and direct about what the instructions are or what you are allowing the moment, what is expected of them. And of course, all within the context of a loving relationship with a child, that we can develop those clear expectations and provide consequences when those expectations are not met, and filled in with plenty of love and connection, and presence.

Candice Wu 11:15

So, here I am working with Sage and wondering how do I growl at him, and tell him what the expectation is, without being like vicious or mean. But just being clear, stern and convicted. Because if I’m getting angry or frustrated, he’s picking up on that and possibly trying to rebel against that. The reason I’m bringing this topic up is that this is a perfect illustration of what happens day to day, to many of us and to myself.

Candice Wu 11:56

There are things that I want in my life, the things that I’m shooting for, or that I have goals for, that sometimes they’re high goals, sometimes, I’m afraid that I want to achieve them, and yet I cannot not go for them. And I do find that when I’m going for these goals, I do let my fears come in the way, sometimes I do get ruffled by those fears. And I asked myself, “How can I use this energy of commitment, and complete engagement and conviction, clarity with the universe to express what I expect and want, all without control and resistance of what I do get?” That’s where the being unruffled comes in. Just acknowledging the reality that happens, acknowledging the response of the universe, or what’s going on around me, and yet still staying the course, still pursuing exactly what I want, knowing and believing that I deserve it, I’m worthy of it, and I can have what I want. And breaking all of the fears, and limited ideas, or narrow mindsets that tell me, now you can’t really have that, or that’s just too big of a goal, or that it’s just not possible.

Candice Wu 13:21

When we think that something’s not possible, we send that message out to the world, if we start to believe it. And we act in that way in accordance with that belief, and we get agreement from the universe around us. But if we hold to what we want, what we desire, which gives it true possibility, if we desire it, it is possible, then the world around us starts to agree with that. But if we’re giving mixed messages, which we usually are, there’s often some part of us that thinks and knows, and believes, “Yes, it is possible, I just know it.” And other parts that say, “Nope, nope, that’s just beyond what you can have or that’s not what you’re allowed to do in life.” Then not all of our energy is placed in this focused forward-moving place, that actually tells clearly to the universe, this is what I want. And I’m ready for it and there’s space me for it.

Candice Wu 14:22

When I was working with Sage, and growling at him, and staying with myself and staying in this clear idea of what I wanted him to do, I could feel my energy coalesce and gather so that more of me was coming forward, more of me was speaking to him, and I meant it. And I started to look at some of the things that I wanted in my life, and asked myself, am I actually giving that sort of 100% and dropping the fears, doubts, and anxieties about it, just leaving them behind?

Candice Wu 15:00

There’s a place for working with those and clearing those fears out, completing whatever it is that needs to be taken care of around those fears and anxieties or giving them love. Yes, that’s very important. That’s part of what I do with myself and with others, there’s a part of completing any trauma that the psyche and a soul is begging for completion, is wanting you to renegotiate and to complete so that you can fully feel safe and worthy in this life, and that’s hugely important to getting all parts of you onboard towards what you want to manifest, towards what you want for yourself in your life, whether that’s a love that you have been waiting for, loving yourself, a career move that you want to have, a way that you want to scale up or expand in your business, if you want better friendships or better relationships with your family.

Candice Wu 16:04

There’s an amount of completing those pieces that keep pulling you into a cycle or dynamic, or actions that you take that seem to reinforce a past programming or script of your life. All of that healing work is so powerful to make the space where then you can not let yourself fall into the fear, but to be able to feel the fear or acknowledge it and move forward and not believe it, but to transmute it into energy that takes you towards the things that you desire. So, with all of this, I asked myself, “How do I do that? How do I actually commit all my energy to the things that I want, in a way that tells universe clearly what I want, while surrendering to and acknowledging what the universe is giving me and what the universe wants? How do I actually collaborate with the universe, not dominate the universe.”

Candice Wu 17:15

So, it’s the same as I was saying with working with children. It’s not about being authoritarian, where you’re just harsh mean and instilling fear and trying to control everything, but being in self-authority as a parent, being in self-authority with your life, having true authority inside and leadership inside that connects you with the universe, and allows you to listen, respond, and express, reach out for, make a move and create. How do you make the waves versus just letting everything happen?

Candice Wu 17:54

So, I go back to being unruffled and letting this dance of life happen, acknowledging it all, feeling it all and staying the course, staying with your eyes forward and focused on what you want, and maybe taking a break to rest, or to acknowledge the things that pull you to another direction to heal or resolve, but then getting back on. And when you take that detour to come back on the path, that you know you want, that the detour isn’t to turn you back around or take you off your course, but it might inform the new step a new direction, but that it’s mostly the inner stuff that just wants to find some sort of place in you, in some sort of loving so that you can move on, so that you can take the energy that’s being offered to you through the fears or anxieties and bring them forward, integrate them into the forward-moving steps.

Candice Wu 19:00

When I learned Zen Buddhist meditation, and also studied a bit of Buddhism, I was learning about the second arrow, when we have the first arrow, that means we’re having an emotional reaction. The second arrow is the judgment on that reaction, and it’s about releasing those extra layers, or just noticing them all, noticing the sort of train of emotions coming through, and letting them move through without resistance, but also staying with what you want.

Candice Wu 19:33

Another aspect of this whole conversation is, it is what I want in accordance with the universe, am I in alignment with what the universe wants for me and what I want for myself, is that any different, and that’s something that I’ve studied and pondered, and felt within myself. And what I know is, when I’m in alignment with myself, the source of myself at the deepest, clearest, most peaceful and loving part of me, then I’m in line with the universe around me. And that is actually the goal of yoga. That is the vision of yoga. Yoga means union. It’s the union of this particular energy, which I call me back to the entirety. And it’s the self that is with a big S, a capital S, that self which is the self of all of creation, in harmony and integrated, intertwined, that it works is one.

Candice Wu 20:39

When I feel like I’m truly acting from the place of freedom, creation, love, clarity, then I feel in alignment with not just myself, but the universe around me, I’m able to listen and respond, sense what’s in store for me and how I can move with what’s happening in a graceful way. But then, from there, I can also share to the universe, my desires, in a loving way as well, so that the universe receives me, and it’s this in and outflow of a creative and collaborative process. In this way, we can shift out of what we see as our sole karma, the tendency and pattern of action over time, we can shift out of that, and into a place of spirit, of the creative and divine creative self that is within all of us, and all of what exists.

Candice Wu 21:44

We can act from so many different parts of us. If I’m really angry, what place am I acting from? Is this a reaction to something? Am I being triggered by a belief that, I don’t know I’m unworthy or I am a bad person, or any other belief that that anger stems from the anger which got triggered by something only because of certain beliefs that I have or if I’m fearful because of certain belief sets underlying my experience in the world reflecting that, then, what place Am I living from, and moving from. For me, it’s often a younger place, or at least this is how I can place it so that I can heal and move forward and move from a wiser place or a different, more whole part of me, one that can see beyond the fears, one that can see beyond anxieties and anger, and sadness or loss or anything that I feel kind of drowned in.

Candice Wu 22:50

I can see beyond that when I’m tapping into another aspect of myself, and a more adult and resourced part of me that doesn’t believe in this same belief sets or has the same dependencies as I did when I was young, when I was a child and needed adults to keep me safe. So, I feel it’s quite the inner and outer dance to both stay very committed to what I want and clear with the universe, staying unruffled to what comes my way. And also, to let myself adjust if my desires change. And to sense presently, “What do I want now, and what’s for me right now? Where am I headed? But also to listen to the universe and work with it in a way that’s loving, to not resist the experiences that I have or the emotions that I’m feeling or what’s happening on around me, but to accept, agree, and then choose my response after.

Candice Wu 23:26

So, if it is something that I don’t agree with, really just accept that it’s here, and then decide what action to take next. But the key piece that I’m working with lately is to feel that energy of conviction and commitment, and clarity, so much of me on board to connect with that energy, and to fuel the message of clarity to the world, to those around me or if I’m communicating with people that I’m so present, that there’s no question of what I want, or what I’m about. In a lot of ways, this reminds me also of my voice lessons that I’ve been taking, where my teacher told me that my voice was getting stuck in my throat.

Candice Wu 24:16

So, instead of it, the voice projecting from my core, up and out all the way and projecting forward and outward, it was getting stuck in my throat where wasn’t articulating and the energy just wasn’t flowing all the way through, which was part of the reason I started doing this podcast was to let all of that energy move and come out of me, instead of letting it get stuck. And when I was letting it get stuck, it started to, I started to feel fatigued all the time, when I was talking, even talking for an hour, I felt tired. And now it’s moving all the way through and it doesn’t exhaust me like that anymore.

Candice Wu 25:28

And while it moves through, it also helps me to feel clearer, and like I can project my expression outward and forward, I can take up space with what I want and what I’m saying and who I am. And I can be clearer with the world around me and believe myself like I mean it. And I feel that that kind of commitment that I’m learning through working with Sage, the horse, is that same energy projection and clarity, and feeling like I actually believe myself when I say what I want, or when I’m giving instruction outward or if I’m just expressing myself in any way.

Candice Wu 26:14

In a lot of ways, this is a masculine energy, to me, it has direction, and it has clarity of execution and movement, rather than it being a broad energy that just opens up. It’s a directed energy, and we do need the balance of both feminine and masculine to create in the world and to have a balance or to enhance and grow into different parts of us.

Candice Wu 26:45

So, what I’m sharing with you today, may or may not resonate with you, for me, it’s just what I’m exploring right now the aspect of myself that I’m growing into. And if you’ve been listening along to any of podcasts that I’ve talked about this, you already have heard me say something like this, where I believe that we’re here to learn in every possibility that we can, because the universe is all possibility itself. We are of the universe, we are part of that, we are a piece of that, and we have the entire universe within us. All of the energies of the outside world, and the universe are the same energies that live inside of us just in whatever amalgamation, it is in that particular human being. And so, I feel very strongly, for me, at least in my life, that feeling into every possibility of myself is incredibly empowering and essential.

Candice Wu 27:49

And what I mean is using different tools that I have in myself, different energies at different times, and not getting rigid about using one only, or that a certain way of being is bad, but allowing every kind of action or way of being to have someplace and some purposeful and beneficial outcome, given whatever it is that is happening.

Candice Wu 28:18

So, you know when some people say anger is bad, well, actually anger is quite good in certain situations. How can we use the different energies of discarding what we don’t need anymore, or shifting and transmuting energy to bring us more and forward in life, or taking something old and repurposing or reclaiming what’s behind it? Releasing, giving in or surrendering, creating something, or perhaps calling out and holding accountable, seeing something and acknowledging, bypassing certain aspects or energies that we don’t want to be engaged in or creating a new energy that we want to hold space for BN, or express ourselves from, these are just a short list of ways of being that we can utilize. And this piece of staying engaged and committed, and using a more masculine, staying the course energy and sometimes grappling with firmness, if things are not picking up speed, and not getting ruffled by the things that can pull me off track.

Candice Wu 29:31

This is what I’m working on right now. If this is resonating with you, I’d encourage you to ask yourself some of the same questions. Where in my life is commitment needed? And am I truly committed? How much of me is on board with that conviction and commitment? Where do I get ruffled? What fears pull me off course? And do I stay there or do I go back? How can I support myself in getting back on track with my desire? Am I resisting my experiences and what the universe is showing me right now or am I receiving and taking in or responding to what’s happening by accepting, feeling it through and taking the next step? Where do I get stalled?

Candice Wu 29:46

Is there a place in my life that I need to do a little bit of growling or a lot where I need to kind of grunt and get even more committed, get more focused? Do I want that for myself? Do I want to be able to manifest what I desire? Can I communicate with those around me and the universe around me in a way that works? And what part of me am I communicating from? Is what I desire connected with the source of me, the aligned part of me that is in sync with the universe? And what do I need to process heal or resolve in order to get that clarity, and to connect with my deeper self?

Candice Wu 31:23

These are many complex questions I just fired off, and I hope that you are gentle with yourself as you look at these questions, and play with it. It’s all meant for play and exploration, curiosity, and getting to know yourself. So, all the places where you do get off track, or allow the fear to take over and take you completely off your course, and your desire. Those are times that your soul is telling you that there’s something to learn here, and you can grow even more exponentially from looking at those places, but not staying too long there, also staying on course, we’re getting back on course, when it’s time in all of that is, according to what’s right for you. You are the expert of your own life and the creator of your experience. So, it’s all about what you need and want right now.

Candice Wu 32:21

Thanks for tuning into the exploration that I’m having right now about commitment and conviction. And I’m just truly grateful for you out there that you’re listening and taking this in, and hopefully growing in your own way with it. Thank you so much. And of course, I love to hear your feedback, comments, questions, your stories. So, feel free to email me or message me on any of the social media that I’m on. I’d love to hear from you.

Candice Wu 32:55

Before you go today, if you’d like to hear more podcasts, more explorations, or hear guided healing experientials and meditations, you can go to my website, for the podcast at CandiceWu.com/podcast. And if you’d like to receive bi-monthly newsletters, with updates about where I am, how I’m doing, as well as tips for loving yourself and taking care of your spirit, you can check that out at CandiceWu.com/embody. Lately, on the Embody Community on Facebook, I’ve been doing four to eight-minute segments of self-love for the day or tips on feeling into your body, checking in with yourself, as well as various healing meditations and experiences. So, I hope you join me there.

Candice Wu 33:46

So, that’s all for today. I am wishing you all well. See you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

This episode is with special guest, Joy Curran, who authors Equine Assisted Counseling with the help of her amazing horse, Chaya. We talked all about the ways that horses can be an embodied and powerful way to learn about yourself, move through blocks and challenges, and build confidence as well as the spiritual connection and love that horses can bring.

Candice Wu 0:22

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

Candice Wu 0:36

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 0:59

Today’s episode is brought to you by the Sound Sleep Alchemy album, which is an album of 11 healing experientials and meditations that will help you feel more grounded, restful, and easeful in your sleep and throughout the day. It’s a stepping stone towards healing trauma, bringing your nervous system to a baseline where you feel relaxed and calm. And looking at the deeper aspects of sleep issues and feeling disembodied.

Candice Wu 1:23

It’s one of my offerings that you can find at my website at CandiceWu.com/soundsleep. Your support in ordering an album helps me to make more healing albums, content, and produce more podcast episodes.

Candice Wu 1:35

Thank you all out there for being awesome listening in to the show and supporting it in ways that you can and now let’s get to the show.

Candice Wu 1:44

So for the month of July, I was house-sitting and cat-sitting in Perth, Australia. Being in the suburbs of Perth, I was seeing all sorts of farmlands, expansive fields, as well as horse farms. And I just remembered that spark in me that wanted to learn to ride horses.

Candice Wu 2:04

I’ve only ridden a horse one other time. And this time as I thought about horseback riding, thought about my spirit animal that comes to me in my dreams often, which is a horse, I just started crying, realizing that I needed to do this. I needed to learn how to ride a horse. I needed to be with horses and learn from them.

Candice Wu 2:26

So I was actually connected to Joy through the friend that I was house-sitting for, and I just could not be more thrilled about this meeting. And what’s even more exciting to find someone that did Equine Assisted Learning and Counseling. So horses mixed with healing and therapy and empowerment. Two things that I already know I love.

Candice Wu 2:47

So here today, we have Joy Curran with us and she is Joy by name, but also by nature. She just lives to help others discover the joy in their life. And using her own experiences of overcoming anxiety and depression, she is able to relate to many others going through similar struggles.

Candice Wu 3:06

Joy’s work is based in Sunny Perth, and she offers these Equine Assisted Counseling and Learning Services with the help of her amazing horse Chaya. She’s a qualified counselor and uses her intuition to select from a wide range of counseling techniques and Equine activities and just blends them in this creative way, which she also gives an incredible amount of space for whatever you want to bring, and how you want to explore being with a horse or working with any of the struggles, challenges or desires you have.

Candice Wu 3:38

So here’s our conversation. I hope you enjoy it. And following this episode, there’s a bonus, a video of me having a session with Joy and her horse, Chaya. In the session, which was very powerful, I touched into some of my long-standing sufferings and feeling a new baseline of rest and ease in my body.

Candice Wu 4:00

Also, I want to mention, as usual with most of my guests on the show, there’s a special gift offered by Joy to those who are inspired to work with her and Chaya. And, if that even means taking a trip to Perth. Great, feel free to check that out at the end of the episode. And just one more thing before we jump into the episode, just to give a heads up, Joy starts with a prayer just like with her clients in her sessions, she invites prayer, if you feel comfortable with it, and if you desire it.

Candice Wu 4:30

And so, in this episode, we start off with a prayer and if it’s not for you, you can skip it and just move forward or you can just receive whatever it is that you can from it. If you’re curious about that, you can check out also near the end of the episode where Joy talks more about prayer and how she incorporates it. So, without further ado, here is Joy.

Candice Wu 4:54

Okay, here we are with Joy Curran. And we are in Wanneroo, the northern suburbs of Perth in Australia. And I’m so thrilled to be here with you today. Welcome.

Joy Curran 5:05

Thank you, Candice. I’m very excited to be here with you today and feel very privileged and honored to be part of this podcast. So thank you and welcome.

Candice Wu 5:14

Thank you. Yes, I’m a guest here and you’d like to start with a prayer and I would welcome you to do that.

Joy Curran 5:21

“Dear Lord, I just acknowledge your presence here with us now. And I just ask your blessing on our time together, that everyone who hears this podcast may just receive a blessing from it, that they may grow in some way personally, socially, spiritually, emotionally, and just get whatever they need out of that time together. I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

Candice Wu 5:47

Amen. Thank you.

Joy Curran 5:50

Thank you.

Candice Wu 5:51

So we are here. Would you call this a farm or just more just like a horse?

Joy Curran 5:56

Yeah, the owners call it a farm, I’m from much larger properties. So for me, this is more of a lifestyle property. So, it’s about five acres in size, mostly green, even in summer, because we have a reticulation here. And yeah, it is a beautiful farm because of all the animals and birds that tend to be wandering about the place as you can see. Some ducks and some chickens and some lambs, who you might hear their little footsteps heading on the ground around us, and an occasional bleat.

Candice Wu 6:36

And one of them was gnawing at the mic, excuse the different noises or enjoy them, rather.

Joy Curran 6:43

Yes, I can see him jumping on a little owl statue at the moment.

Candice Wu 6:49

They’re quite enjoying that over there.

Joy Curran 6:51

Fascinating!

Candice Wu 6:53

I want to just begin with inviting you Joy to share what it is you do, who you are, and anything you want to about the Equine Assisted Living, in teaching that you do.

Joy Curran 7:05

Beautiful. Thank you.

Joy Curran 7:07

So maybe we can break that down a little bit. Because those questions like I could speak all day on this question. So, um, so who am I? It’s one of those things I never really know how to answer. Because I feel like I’m such a big person. And, I feel like I extend into so many different areas that I find it hard to just narrow it down to who I am.

Candice Wu 7:33

Yeah.

Joy Curran 7:34

But yeah, who I am. I love people. I love animals. I love the expression of self, in myself. And — yes, thank you very much.

Joy Curran 7:51

I love it. Yeah, just beautiful.

Joy Curran 7:54

Lambs expressing themselves or people or whoever I come in contact with, just allowing that personal individual to shine. It’s jumping around now quite joyfully to me.

Candice Wu 8:10

I know it’s so interesting. This is just beginning as you’re talking about your self-expression.

Joy Curran 8:16

Yeah.

Candice Wu 8:17

Who you are and just being yourself and being connected.

Joy Curran 8:23

Gorgeous. And, I might have to do some Sheep Assisted Learning

Candice Wu 8:38

You’re thinking about Sheep Assisted Learning?

Joy Curran 8:40

Well, I am right now.

Joy Curran 8:44

With the response from the sheep as we’re talking, I’m thinking, “Yeah, why no?”

Joy Curran 8:49

The kind of stuff that we get happening with the horses all the time, just that, somehow they just respond to what we’re talking about. And they just kind of act out, what we’re thinking or feeling or expressing.

Candice Wu 9:01

Yeah.

Joy Curran 9:02

And I feel this letting go in being here and being with horses, being with animals, you can’t plan things, you can’t — and they won’t go as planned. And it’s kind of fun, just to see what’s going to happen and embracing the unexpected things. That’s a huge part of it, yeah. And being a practitioner, you know, getting to that point where I can let go and trust that, whatever happens, is going to be beneficial. Whatever happens, we’re going to get something good out of it.

Candice Wu 9:35

So tell me more about your work. And, well, first, I want to say, I completely understand that sense of not being like the challenge of how do you describe who you are, because we’re so many things, we are so big, and often in our lives, we’ve been told to kind of lodge ourselves into something.

Joy Curran 10:01

Yeah.

Candice Wu 10:01

A way to describe ourselves, and it’s just so narrow.

Joy Curran 10:06

Yeah, I definitely feel that.

Candice Wu 10:09

And it’s nice to remember that we’re just so many more things than the career that we have chosen or the things that we love or do, but we’re just much more than that.

Joy Curran 10:19

Yeah.

Candice Wu 10:19

So how did your love of horses begin? And how did you begin in doing this work with Equine Therapy?

Joy Curran 10:26

Lovely. Yeah, I believe that it’s something that was placed inside of me since pops before time began. I don’t know. They’ve got a saying that once you’ve got horses in your blood, it’s in your blood.

Joy Curran 10:41

So my parent, my mum side of the family, are pioneers and farmers and of course, they used horses to work the land to make a living and I had a very strong love for the horse. And I guess that just flowed through to me.

Joy Curran 11:01

When I was a child, I remember getting, given My Little Pony as a gift for my birthdays. And that was just my favorite present. And I would spend hours and hours playing with these My Little Pony toys. And I guess I just got this romantic view of the horse and their beauty and their speed. And something about their spirit captured me as well, I think.

Candice Wu 11:26

That makes so much sense about, once they’re in your blood.

Joy Curran 11:31

Yeah.

Candice Wu 11:31

And it makes me think of, hadn’t really thought much about this, but have you — about Centaurs and how human and horse were connected at some point, or is it just a myth or what?

Joy Curran 11:43

Well, I personally believe this Centaur is like a picture or a metaphor. So, the combination of the human leadership and the horse strength and speed and agility combined, I think that just, it’s a picture of wisdom. You know, the Centaur is known for being a wise creature, and to get that oneness with a horse requires wisdom. And so, I sort of view it as a, as a picture something to work towards, to strive towards, to be able to achieve that oneness, the human with the horse.

Candice Wu 12:23

That’s a beautiful image. Well, and I just started writing. And I’ve kind of tuned into that concept of being one with horse, how do you do that? If you personally, or how do you teach people?

Joy Curran 12:38

It’s a journey, it’s not something that is a quick thing to learn, let me just set you up for that.

Candice Wu 12:46

Thank you.

Joy Curran 12:46

It’s a lifelong journey in a lot of ways. And I’m thinking in terms of mastery, because that sense of oneness, like you, can achieve moments here and there, where everything comes together and live got things like being grounded, things like being open to your environment, aware of what’s happening around you. And then, there’s that spiritual element of connectedness as well. And, there’s a communication between you and the horse. And that happens on all three different levels as well.

Joy Curran 13:23

And so it’s that coming together of the communication, the heart space, and that awareness and groundedness at the same time. Does that make sense?

Candice Wu 13:38

It does. It feels like tuning into your own body, and your own all of your senses, intuition, and what’s going on inside of you, as well as with a horse you’re working with or being with?

Joy Curran 13:52

Yeah, definitely.

Candice Wu 13:53

Yeah.

Joy Curran 13:54

And there is that added dimension of the horse who has its own mind. So in feelings, thoughts, and desires, and they may or may not align with yours.

Joy Curran 14:07

So it’s that journey of how can I encourage the horse to accept my ideas, my way of going and what does the horse need from me in order to want to become one with me. Because that oneness is not something that can be forced from a horse. It’s something that can be enjoyed. But it’s not something that can be forced.

Candice Wu 14:32

It’s a really interesting thing to keep in mind. It feels interesting to me right now. Because I think with human connections, we often want to force them.

Joy Curran 14:44

Yeah.

Candice Wu 14:44

And it is clear you can’t with horses. It just feels like something easier to accept, even with, like, cats, you know, when cats just walk away and flick their head, you’re just like, “okay,” when a person does it, we can often feel so rejected or hurt or wounded, or at least that’s, you know, I have had that experience. There seems to be an element of acceptance when it comes to working with horses.

Joy Curran 15:15

I think, because the horse doesn’t have an ego, it’s much easier to accept their actions, and not perhaps take them so personally. And of course, when it comes to forcing, you know, the horse, if we’re going to get into a tug of war, he’s a lot bigger, a lot stronger, even possibly faster, much more aware. So we really can’t get into that, that game of push and pull and forcing, because if it comes down to it, he’s just going to squash you.

Candice Wu 15:53

So that is one aspect that you work with people on communication?

Joy Curran 15:58

Very much.

Candice Wu 15:59

How is the process of working on communication with the horses translate to human relationships? Is that what you’re seeing?

Joy Curran 16:09

Definitely. So, the beautiful thing is that once you’ve learned those skills, and those ways of being, you naturally, then translate them into other areas of your life.

Joy Curran 16:19

I can give an example. But sometimes it does require a bit of focused effort, like there is an element of that natural flow. But there’s also this element of intentionally focus in that direction. And I had an experience where I was really working on allowing my horse to feel comfortable and relaxed in each moment when I was asking how to do things. And I was really working hard at it. And then, my daughter says to me, “Why don’t you do that with me, mom?”

Joy Curran 16:57

So I had a good look at myself, and thought, yes, I actually do need to translate that to the other areas of my life. So when the horse kind of forces me to learn how to do these things that I should be doing everywhere else, they actually, you know, do teach me those skills. And I can translate them when I put my mind to it. And in fact, is aware of it.

Candice Wu 17:20

That makes sense. So I want to just backtrack a little bit and talk about how do you communicate with horses?

Joy Curran 17:27

As I said, there are different levels of communication that we can engage with horses on. So, there’s the physical level, and that’s probably the most obvious. And then the thing that’s easiest to observe amongst the horses themselves. And it’s what you see when you see a horse person, you know, they will put their body in a certain way, point where they want to go, and those sorts of things. So there’s that physical aspect of communicating through the positioning of our body.

Joy Curran 17:58

There is a tonal aspect, in terms of voice, horses tend not to use their voices, much in communication in the wild, more so in domestication. But wild horses, if we go back to the roots, very little voice, it’s used mainly for locating each other over long distances. So when humans use voice, we have to use it sparingly, or, the horse needs to learn to become accustomed to us using our voice, which is quite common these days. And so horses can be trained to respond to voice commands, you can say, trot on, and the horse will actually trot because it’s been trained to respond to a voice command, so we can communicate in that way.

Joy Curran 18:50

And then, there’s a deeper space, there’s a heart space of communication. And because of their sensitivity, somehow, the horses understand what we’re feeling towards ourselves and towards them, and towards our environment at the time, and they actually respond to that as well. And, what I try and do is try and communicate to the horse, the purpose, why are we doing this. And that heart space and setting them up to succeed and give them a purpose, they actually want to do it because there’s a reason to do it. But if I’m just like, do this, and there’s no purpose, they get bored and cranky and angry at me, and like, come on, why do I have to? Do you see, just like a child might?

Candice Wu 19:40

Yeah, it brings me back to my days of teaching art.

Joy Curran 19:42

Right, exactly the same.

Candice Wu 19:45

And adults, we want to know why we’re doing something and not just being told.

Joy Curran 19:49

Yeah, and then, I do believe there’s a kind of spiritual connection that can happen that’s much more difficult to put words to, the spiritual realm is for some, very difficult to perceive. And for those who can set some people are very gifted in and really understand the spiritual realm very well. And those people probably if they’re able to learn to be grounded, they will probably be able to communicate very well with horses because horses do have very big spirits, they’re very spiritual creatures.

Candice Wu 20:27

So when you say spiritual realm, I know it’s a bit hard to describe, but what do you mean by that?

Joy Curran 20:35

Yeah, great question. I guess I’m thinking of a story, an ancient story of “Balaam’s Donkey”, have you heard of that?

Candice Wu 20:45

No, I haven’t, what’s it about?

Joy Curran 20:46

There was a man and he was riding a donkey, and he actually was a prophet of God, but he was being disobedient to God. And he was going off to curse some people because he was getting paid to do it. And he was riding his donkey on the way there, even though God told him not to do it.

Joy Curran 21:07

And his donkey started turning aside and not going the direction that he wanted to go. So he started beating the donkey and the story goes that after the third time, because he ended up getting his foot crushed against the wall by the donkey, and he was really angry at this donkey and he’s hitting him and baiting him, and the donkey opens his mouth and says, “Why are you hitting me?”

Joy Curran 21:35

And for some reason, he’s not concerned with the idea that the donkeys talking to him, but he talks back to the donkey and he says, “Because you’re not going where you’re supposed to be going!”

Joy Curran 21:47

And the donkey’s like, “But there was an angel.”

Joy Curran 21:52

And so his eyes were opened, and he saw an angel standing in front of him blocking his path. And he had a sword in his hand ready to kill him, basically, because he was being disobedient to God. And so, I kind of have this picture of the donkey could see what was going on in the spiritual realm. There was this angel there to destroy the man and the man just had no clue. No idea. And then he was taking it out on the donkey.

Joy Curran 22:24

I think that’s part of it. You know, I believe in spirits and angels and demons and God Himself. And so I believe that and I believe we have our own spirit within us as well, that can connect to other spirits in various ways.

Joy Curran 22:43

And so then, with the horse having its own spirit, we then can connect on that spiritual level, which is different from our natural level, physical level.

Candice Wu 22:54

That deep or unseen.

Joy Curran 22:55

Yeah, beyond understanding kind of level.

Candice Wu 23:00

Yeah.

Joy Curran 23:01

The infinite level beyond time and space.

Candice Wu 23:05

And that can be what it feels like to be with a horse.

Candice Wu 23:07

In my experience, it just feels like it can take me into another place.

Joy Curran 23:13

Beautiful.

Candice Wu 23:14

Yeah.

Joy Curran 23:15

And I believe that can be on the natural realm and the spiritual realm as well, because they’ve done studies that show that they’ve measured the electromagnetic field of the heart of the horse, and depending on the size of the horse, can expand to about 10 feet beyond the horse.

Candice Wu 23:33

Wow!

Joy Curran 23:34

Yeah, it’s quite a big distance. And so then, once you come within that electromagnetic field of the horse, the horse’s heart is actually a lot bigger than ours. And so it can have an impact on our heart.

Joy Curran 23:50

And they’ve done studies where if you look up the HeartMath Institute, they’ve recorded the heart rate patterns of humans and horses separately and together. And what they found is that a human, by sitting in that space of the horse for 20 minutes, by the end of that 20 minutes, their heart will be beating in the same pattern as the horses’ heart.

Candice Wu 24:18

Nice.

Joy Curran 24:19

And since the horses have a lot less ego and junk to deal with than humans do, they usually have a correlative heart rhythm, which is that kind of happy, stress-free, natural, healthy kind of rhythm that we want to have in our lives. So just by being with the horse, you can feel more relaxed just because of that.

Candice Wu 24:40

Mirror Neurons, I would imagine is one part of that, like, we’re mirroring that vibration or is it more —

Joy Curran 24:49

There’s also the influence of mirroring, I think it’s a separate thing. I may be mistaken. It’s not really, I’m not an expert in that field of study. But in my mind, it’s two separate things.

Candice Wu 25:02

Yeah. And it’s interesting, it’s not the other way around in that study. That the horses are well, because as their heart, is much bigger and the radius of the field, the electromagnetic field can be 10 feet. That’s quite big.

Joy Curran 25:17

Yeah.

Candice Wu 25:18

And for humans, I’m not sure what the radius is.

Joy Curran 25:21

About two feet.

Candice Wu 25:22

Is it?

Joy Curran 25:22

Yeah.

Candice Wu 25:22

Okay. So I know for babies and mothers, it’s important to be within 36 inches of mother and baby. So that’s fascinating.

Candice Wu 25:32

I checked out your website. And it’s beautiful. And you share so many different aspects of what a person can work on in their lives, through working with horses and being with them. And I’m saying this also, this list of things, I’m just going to list a couple of these things that Equine Assisted Learning can strengthen —

Joy Curran 25:52

Sure.

Candice Wu 25:52

And enhance. Sense of belonging, safety, self-worth, balance, care, relationships, flexibility, perseverance. Let’s see, self-improvement, creativity, spirituality, a sense of purpose, and you also had on your website, money, family, career, which ones are interesting to you to talk about today?

Joy Curran 26:23

I think family is one of those things because of the dynamic of the horses and living in family groups, and just been this, from a parenting aspect, like working with the horse is a lot like parenting. The things that we have to grow in and overcome as parents are the exact same things that we need to overcome and develop to become a good horse master.

Candice Wu 26:52

And what kinds of things do you mean?

Joy Curran 26:53

Yeah, so emotional intelligence, for one.

Joy Curran 26:58

The horse is looking for a stable, steady, strong leader, but also a leader that’s going to listen and give them a voice. And so, it’s this combination of traits that we need to develop, that confrontation of why are you doing what I want you to do right now? And managing yourself in that? Am I going to react out of my ego? Or, am I going to recognize that the horse is just being a horse? And realize that is a change in myself that I need to make in order for this to proceed in a positive way.

Candice Wu 27:39

Yeah, I can see how that can apply to children or relationships, mostly children, I think in that more that —

Joy Curran 27:46

Yeah. Because the children, their minds are not fully developed. And I guess there’s that similarity, because, with the horse, they don’t have much of a mind. Their brain is actually the size of a walnut. So there’s very little cognitive processing going on, but they have big heart, big emotions, and that, you know, that animal instinct that’s going along there. So, I think children are quite similar, that they have very limited cognitive processing abilities, but they have big emotions and big hearts and things that they really want to do. And so it’s that learning how do I communicate with someone that’s actually not on the same level as me intellectually.

Candice Wu 28:33

Bridging that connection.

Joy Curran 28:35

Definitely, yeah.

Candice Wu 28:37

And can you talk more about the quality of family within the horses or the herd, or I imagine that’s part of what can come into the work with people as well?

Joy Curran 28:51

Yeah, it’s very interesting, because just like people, every horse has its own kind of personality. Some people call it a “horsonality”.

Joy Curran 29:02

You just like, with every family’s going to look different, every herd is going to look different. And so what you’ve got to work with this, what you’ve got to work. So there’s this acceptance of who you are. And there’s this idea of working together for the good of the community.

Joy Curran 29:22

In particular, in wild horses, they’ve always got someone looking out for danger, there’s always someone on the alert, looking out for a lion, or a tiger, or a pack of wolves that are a threat to the herd, the person or the horse that gets that job is the one that’s the most alert. So out of all the horses, they have these little tests, these little trials, to see who is the most alert at any one time. And so, a horse might do something like try and sneak around behind another one, and see if they can surprise them. And if they can surprise the other horse, then, they’re not that alert. So they shouldn’t be the leader right now.

Candice Wu 30:06

It’s interesting, have you seen this happen, or —

Joy Curran 30:11

I’ve seen it on videos. I haven’t really seen it in person. But it’s something that, if you know Carolyn Resnick, sort of watched her training DVD, read one of her books, and it’s something that she observed from spending time in the wild with horses. And it’s something that she’s carried on as a training technique with the horse, to say, “Can you keep your eyes on me? Can you pay attention to me as the leader?”

Joy Curran 30:38

And so that’s something that the leader will do that will say, “Are you paying attention to me? Because I’ve got to say, when we got a run for it.” You know, it’s important. So the horse will be checking in with each of the herd members, “Are you watching me? Are you ready to run if I say go?”

Joy Curran 30:55

So yeah, there’s this constant communication between one another, we can learn from that in our families, I think. Especially today, we just so easily let everyone go off and live their individual lives. And there’s less of that interaction of that, in the family dynamic. I mean, some families probably interact more on Facebook than they do in person, you don’t send a Facebook message, “Time to do the dishes.”

Candice Wu 31:24

Oh my goodness! I think that does happen a lot.

Joy Curran 31:26

It does, it really does.

Joy Curran 31:29

So yeah, I think the horses can be really good examples to us in how to get back to that, that physical connection, and even just interacting with each other, and staying alert to one another’s needs and desires and any potential threats as well.

Candice Wu 31:48

Yeah, there’s a lot of cooperation that you’re speaking to.

Joy Curran 31:51

A lot.

Candice Wu 31:52

Yeah.

Joy Curran 31:53

And there is that sort of, you know: “Are we together?” A sense of togetherness, because they do operate as one unit. Because if someone gets separated from the herd, they are in a very dangerous situation, because it’s very easy for them to be picked off by a pack of wolves, or a lion or tiger. So, having them all together is the sets of safety. And so their survival instinct ensures that they really dedicate themselves to having that connectedness and staying together.

Candice Wu 32:30

That makes sense.

Joy Curran 32:31

To even hear that domesticated horses, they will always be checking in with one another. There’ll be a flick of the ear, you know, a flicker of the eye, they’ll be just like, very slot, subtle body movements. That would be like, “What’s going on? How are you doing? This is how I’m feeling right now.”

Candice Wu 32:52

Checking in here and there.

Joy Curran 32:54

Yeah, they’re very alert, very aware to one another. And so, let’s say, we’re bordering some bush here for that side there, we had an emu come passed the other day. And the two horses in the end patty. They threw their heads up and their bodies became really tense. And then they started to sort of need to get rid of some of that tension. And they started galloping around the patty. As soon as their heads were thrown up, my horse, Chaya down the other end of the property away from all of this. She knew straight away that they have seen something that could be a potential danger. And she was watching them, you know, keeping an eye on them say, “Do I need to do something? At all times?”

Candice Wu 32:54

Yeah, a couple of things are coming to me. One is that, for a long time, for nine years, I lived in Chicago, in the city. And this is such a different life.

Joy Curran 32:54

Yes.

Candice Wu 33:05

And when you get into just being out in the open grass with horses, I’m not thinking about the things I’m thinking about when I’m in the city. I have to be in my body. I have to.

Joy Curran 34:05

Yeah.

Candice Wu 34:06

I have to pay attention to what’s around me. Because who knows? Like a horse could be right there that I don’t know. Or, they don’t know, me, or some other animal who knows? The things that are re-front and center here are just very much bringing me into my body.

Joy Curran 34:24

Awesome!

Candice Wu 34:24

Yeah, it’s really neat.

Joy Curran 34:26

That’s definitely one of our goals, is to help people come back into their bodies. And I think sometimes in everyday life, it’s very easy to almost become ahead, you know, we’re thinking a lot, we’re planning all these different scenarios that may or may not happen, we’ve got to make a living, and all these so much in our heads. But out here, it kind of forces you to be in your body and kind of get a bit of that balance back.

Candice Wu 34:54

So, I’m so curious about how you work with things like abundance and money?

Joy Curran 35:01

Really, the sky’s the limit. You know, my creativity is the limit. But we can do things like projection. So we can say, “Okay, this horse is going to represent money to you.” So, depending on what your goal is, let’s say, someone may not feel worthy of receiving money very much. Okay, so let’s say the horse is the money, what are you going to do to receive that money?

Candice Wu 35:33

Siri wants to help.

Candice Wu 35:39

She says, “What can I do?” Is that what she said? How can I help?

Joy Curran 35:42

Nothing? Thank you. Siri.

Candice Wu 35:44

It’s funny when that just pops in.

Candice Wu 35:45

Yes. So you were saying, what are you going to do to receive that horse? Or to invite them forward?

Joy Curran 35:54

Yeah, and it might be, I mean, we could do any number of things. Let’s say there’s an obstacle, it could be a jump, or it could be something that the person’s constructed themselves, and we go say, “Okay, now, how are you going to face this with your horse?”

Joy Curran 36:14

And it’s amazing, because something different happens every single time that you cannot predict what’s going to happen. So whatever that person needs, is what happens. So it might be, for example, I had this slightly different topic, but it’s the same principle. I had a girl who could not face going to school, she was living at home, she couldn’t leave the house, but she was able to come out to visit the horses. That was her first step of leaving the house. And so that was her therapy. And she just could not face the idea of going to school. And so, okay, so this jump is going to represent going to school, and she’s like, “Okay.” She worked up, she got closer, beat by beat, went forward, went back. And then she finally was able to do the jump. And she was so elated with herself. And she said, “Can I do it again?”, and I said “Of course, you can. Do it again.”

Joy Curran 37:17

And it was actually got a breakthrough for her. And she was able to start going to school. So it can be the same with money, just like, “Okay, this obstacle represents getting money,” like, how are you going to face that? What are you going to do? And then whatever that person needs to do, they’ll do with the horse. Or maybe it’ll be for them it might just be sitting with the obstacle with the horse and going, “This isn’t so bad after all.”

Candice Wu 37:51

And that can just create a shift in their mindset when they’re thinking about it. That’s beautiful. It’s reminding me of Family Constellations work, it’s just adding a horse into the picture.

Candice Wu 38:02

I mean, just briefly, it’s using anything to symbolize whatever obstacle, challenge or desire or another person and with that spiritual component, we can tune into the energy of that dynamic.

Joy Curran 38:18

Yeah.

Candice Wu 38:19

And so even if a stranger is representing something for you, like money or your mother, we don’t have to say any information. And that dynamic can show up.

Joy Curran 38:31

That’s right.

Candice Wu 38:32

And with horses, they’re so in tune as well. There’s some connection, even if we’re holding the intention is my sense that I’m getting.

Joy Curran 38:40

Yeah.

Candice Wu 38:41

But I’m not sure of how you see that?

Joy Curran 38:43

Yeah, there will be patterns that people come with, ways of being that they present to the world, or ways of receiving the world in general. And these usually show up in the work with the horses. Yeah, so I mean, it could be a mindset of the world is a dangerous place. And then someone with that kind of mindset is going to be quite jumpy around the horse, because I do a little safety talk before we start with the horse and explain it.

Joy Curran 39:18

Horses are prey animals and they can be startled by sudden noises and sudden movements. So yeah, that kind of person will be very jumpy, and so then it’s working. Okay, so how can we help you feel safe? How can we help you feel comfortable in this situation? And if they can learn to do that in this situation with the horse, well then, maybe they can learn to do that in other areas of their life as well.

Candice Wu 39:47

Yeah, I work with trauma a lot. And, I’ve been thinking about that, as you’ve been talking, is that something you work with and how? And that safety component sounds like an important part of it.

Joy Curran 39:59

Yes, it is. It’s important to be realistic about the risk and the danger but to also be aware that there’s a real joy and real beauty and pleasure that we can get from interacting with the horses as well.

Joy Curran 40:18

In terms of trauma, is that grounding of the person. So we will always do grounding exercise before we go anywhere near the horses, because you need to be grounded to interact with horses safely, that can be beneficial in itself, before we even get to the horse.

Joy Curran 40:38

Once we’re with the horse, is that learning to be in the embodiment, which is so hard for people suffering from trauma, that for them to learn that they can be safe in their body, beat by beat.

Joy Curran 40:54

So, one of the activities that’s really helpful is brushing the horse. It’s a relaxing, calming, soothing activity, the horse enjoys it, the person enjoys it. And it’s this continual movement, that repetitive, and rhythmic kind of movement. And of course, we understand that rhythm is something, it’s very soothing to the human body, also feels like a level of control you could have —

Candice Wu 41:24

That’s right

Joy Curran 41:24

In relation —

Joy Curran 41:25

Yeah, there’s a lot of control because the horse is just standing still. And the client is in complete charge of where they’re going to brush, how hard they are going to brush, what direction, which brush they going to use? Yes, it’s completely up to them.

Candice Wu 41:43

These all sound like very small and simple things. But even me, I noticed going up to a horse and brushing them. It’s not. It’s like quite a big important moment.

Joy Curran 41:56

Yeah.

Candice Wu 41:56

Of being in that moment doesn’t feel smaller, silly or anything, it’s really powerful.

Joy Curran 42:03

It’s a point of connection. It’s a point of giving and receiving with the horse.

Joy Curran 42:13

Can be, you know, apart from getting the dirt out of the coat you giving them a little massage at the same time. And so it feels good to the horse. And then it feels good to us because we get to be in their presence. And we get to make someone feel good. And that makes us feel good.

Candice Wu 42:31

Yeah, this reciprocal energetic synergy.

Candice Wu 42:36

How about sexuality, and, like sexual development, sexual trauma?

Joy Curran 42:42

I find that horseback riding can be very therapeutic. There’s a close connection between the person and the horse. And because it’s very, you know, that sexual area is very close, and with the movement of the horse, then you’re moving your pelvis and your pelvic region. And that can trigger all sorts of emotions, memories, things that have come up, but because you’re on the horse, you kind of have to stay embodied, you kind of have to stay grounded.

Joy Curran 43:20

So, it really is a huge support to help people and the horse literally will carry someone through that. Well, they’re processing the sexual trauma, because obviously, I would never put someone on a horse straightaway. I always build a relationship between the client and the horse before we get to that point. So by the time a client is sitting on a horse’s back, they know that their friends. They know that the horse cares about them, and it’s going to look after them. And so being able to have that safe space, that supports from the horse, to process that trauma, that’s just huge support for them.

Candice Wu 44:02

I can just imagine that and imagine so many aspects of what the body might be carrying, can release or can be held in that space without us even knowing it. Sometimes just what’s moving through.

Joy Curran 44:16

And you’ll often see the horse will do some processing for the person. So they might start yawning. They might start, you know, dropping their head, they’ll do various thing that might even give a little shake, shake their body.

Candice Wu 44:32

You just got to shake it off.

Joy Curran 44:34

Literally.

Candice Wu 44:36

Or, they’re like —

Joy Curran 44:38

Yes exactly.

Candice Wu 44:38

They’re like, stressed and releasing it.

Joy Curran 44:40

Yeah, very much so.

Candice Wu 44:43

I’ll look out for that. That’s really cool! Yeah.

Joy Curran 44:47

I think so too. I love it. Yeah, that is a real connectedness, in that the horse is going with you on the journey and you’re not on your own.

Candice Wu 44:59

Yeah.

Joy Curran 44:59

And then some understanding that the horse has of what you’re going through, and there’s a sharing in that being with you, supporting you in that, this very beautiful, very healing.

Candice Wu 45:11

It’s so powerful.

Joy Curran 45:13

Very powerful. Yeah.

Candice Wu 45:15

I had a couple of questions, you know, within this area from people on Instagram.

Joy Curran 45:22

Yeah.

Candice Wu 45:24

And one was about Fibromyalgia and to work with that. And how, with the horses?

Joy Curran 45:30

I haven’t so far, but I would be very open to it. If I did have someone with that. Yeah, I guess everyone is different. So we need to go with what that person needed. So I would be asking, you know, what are your symptoms? What generates the symptoms and how can we manage that during our session? And how can we make sure that we’re not triggering you and keeping you safe in the interaction?

Candice Wu 46:01

Yeah, that’s so interesting. Yeah.

Candice Wu 46:03

And the other question was, well, and I think you’ve answered it already in the process of this was, is this something you do over a period of time, like repeatedly? Is that the recommendation when you’re working with Equine Learning or therapy?

Joy Curran 46:19

Great question. Well, it really varies according to the individual, a huge amount. So, for any instances of, for example, violent sexual abuse, that’s something that’s going to require probably multiple sessions over a long period of time to help really, to get full healing and freedom.

Joy Curran 46:44

But then you’ve got some people that just, you know what, “I’m just got this issue right now.”

Joy Curran 46:50

And I just want to help to work through that. And they might only need one session or they might only need three sessions and they’re completely happy, free to go, and live life as they want to live.

Joy Curran 47:01

So, there’s a huge spectrum of needs and what people can afford, as well. So, I don’t like to have that as a limiting factor. I really try and find sponsors for people who really can’t afford it because I really hate the idea of someone not being able to get treatment because they can’t afford to.

Candice Wu 47:24

Yeah, that’s great. What a lovely idea to have sponsors. How do you find sponsors?

Joy Curran 47:31

Good question. Networking. Yeah, just letting people know what I’m doing, the value, the benefit, and then by telling someone’s story.

Joy Curran 47:41

At the moment, I’ve got a girl who’s about 14 years old, she’s in a single-parent family and her mother is living on disability pension and this girl suffers from severe anxiety and is unable to get a part-time job, struggling with school. So, that’s the kind of person who we need a sponsor for. Because she really — there’s nothing she can really do in her current position, to be able to afford that.

Joy Curran 48:15

So when people sort of understand that, Oh, it’s not just because they’re lazy, or they just want to hand out, but you know, there are actual, you know, real-life situations that have put them in that position that they, you know, it’s a real struggle for them. I think a lot of people want to get on board, and they want to help those people because they want to help themselves. And they just need a little support to do that.

Candice Wu 48:40

That sounds like exactly what you talked about with the horses looking out for each other. And checking in. And —

Joy Curran 48:46

Yeah.

Candice Wu 48:47

Who can offer something and who might need it or —

Joy Curran 48:51

Exactly.

Candice Wu 48:53

Fit for something at this moment or another?

Joy Curran 48:56

Yeah.

Candice Wu 48:57

So cool.

Candice Wu 48:59

So we have a little bit of time left, let’s switch gears into challenges. What kinds of challenges do you see in your work or in your life? What are you working with now?

Joy Curran 49:10

Lots of things.

Joy Curran 49:12

There’s a couple that come to mind. I think one is that, is the big one is that, overextending myself. There’s such a big world and there are so many people who need help, and I can help them. But, actually, I have a limited amount of resources to give. And I find that really frustrating because I kind of have this deep belief that I’m connected to limitless energy. And I can actually, you know, do anything and everything. But then I find myself actually being limited. And it’s so frustrating!

Candice Wu 49:48

Yes, you just have a big heart and big desires to be out there.

Joy Curran 49:52

I do!

Candice Wu 49:53

And being in a human body.

Joy Curran 49:55

It’s a beautiful gift being in a human body. But it’s limiting. And that frustrates me.

Candice Wu 50:02

I can imagine that. And I can relate to that a lot, too. Is it something you work with yourself on with the horses? And how do you do that?

Joy Curran 50:13

Yeah. I may take you on a slight tangent, like with the horses as a lot of personal growth that I do with the horses. And one of them is like, this whole task versus relationship thing. I’ve done a lot of meditation, on the whole, like, you know, getting tasks done is important. Relationships are important, which one’s more important? You know, is perhaps, at one time, the task is more important, in another time, their relationship is more important. And I feel like from working with the horses, yeah, there’s this dance of relationship and task. And I think the beauty and the joy comes from doing the task in relationship.

Joy Curran 51:03

But if you’re doing the tasks at the sacrifice of the relationship, unless it’s like an emergency situation, or, you know, health concern or safety concern, I think if you’re sacrificing their relationship, that’s when the task loses its joy. And so I’ve got these little debts of like, I need to get this done. But then, if I rush the horse, I’m going to feel rushed, they’re going to respond to my feeling of being rushed, and we’re going to get into a fight. And it’s not going to be fun anymore, you know, just lost the whole lifestyle that I wanted to enjoy in the first place, that peace and that joy, and that relaxation, freedom to be present in the moment, kind of letting go of all these tasks that could have saved me.

Candice Wu 51:49

And I mean, as a side note, your name is Joy.

Joy Curran 51:52

Ah. It is!

Candice Wu 51:52

Not so much of a side note that is so poignant.

Joy Curran 51:57

Yeah, and that, it’s probably a name of my life journey of, you know, from my history of depression and anxiety, and learning to overcome that, and to live in a state of joy. You know, that’s the story of my life in a lot of ways.

Joy Curran 52:15

And then I had a vision where I was crying out to God to bless me. And he came, and he changed my name to “Joyful” and I went, and I looked it up in the dictionary, and, I’ve realized these three kinds of aspects to the word “joyful,” and one was actually feeling joy, one was causing joy, and one was expressing joy. And so yeah, my new name of Joyful then reflects that not only was my name to be Joy, but I was actually to experience it. And to help others to feel that and to express that joy.

Candice Wu 52:55

Full of joy, joyful.

Joy Curran 52:57

Exactly.

Candice Wu 52:58

In all aspects.

Joy Curran 53:00

Exactly.

Candice Wu 53:01

Speaking of joy, just what is one tip that you have for people or thought around joy and how to cultivate it, or to be in your joy.

Joy Curran 53:12

There’s one thing that will keep you joyful, and that is being grateful and being thankful in every moment. There’s always something to be thankful for. And if you can be thankful, even in darkest moments, then you can experience joy, even in those moments.

Candice Wu 53:30

That’s a really good reminder. I feel it’s also very integrating to feel grateful, like tuning into something I’m grateful for, helps me absorb that and feel into the joy. And then I’m just feeling refreshed for the next thing.

Joy Curran 53:46

And it’s interesting, because joy is an emotion and is a feeling. And so we feel it in our body. And so if we are off in our minds somewhere else, we actually not going to feel joy because we have to be in our body to be able to feel joy in the first place.

Candice Wu 54:05

Where do you feel joy in your body? Ah, everywhere. But mainly in my heart, I think.

Joy Curran 54:10

Yeah, it just feels like life, you know, it just feels like being alive. And when I’m especially grateful, It’s like, this bubble comes out from my heart. And it’s just like, this bubble of joy. And I think sometimes other people can feel it and see it. And —

Candice Wu 54:31

Thank you for that.

Joy Curran 54:32

Thank you.

Candice Wu 54:33

So Joy, is there anything else you’d like to share today? Anything else that’s feeling alive for you, that you want to mention to all the people listening?

Joy Curran 54:44

Something I’ve been exploring this week that came to me is that whole idea of, you know, it’s been proven in research, that forgiveness is hugely important to healing, emotional healing, and even physical healing, I believe, we’re all interconnected. But, there’s that, I kind of felt to take it another step further. So, I go to the Bible to get a lot of wisdom and understanding and there’s this verse that says, “Bless your enemies, and do good to those who persecute you.”

Joy Curran 55:27

I wrote a list of all the people who had significantly caused me harm in my life. And then I found all the blessings in the Bible that I could find. And then, I spoke all of those blessings over each person, one by one, okay, so I didn’t get all the blessings from the Bible, because there’s a lot in there. But, you know, a significant amount that I could grab at that time. It took me about 15 minutes. So, I dedicated 15 minutes to each person to go through and just bless them.

Joy Curran 56:03

And I found that as I did that, I became lighter and things like dark energy left my body that didn’t need to be there. And I just had more room in myself, a lot. That makes sense.

Joy Curran 56:21

So yeah, I think that is just something beautiful, that I’d like to share with people that in your healing journey, to just find those points of pain that people have caused you. And even yourself, if you feel that you causing yourself pain, put yourself on that list as I did.

Joy Curran 56:41

And it was beautiful, because, you know, two of the people who cost me the most pain, were my parents and to be able to say those blessings over my parents from my heart space of meaning it and then realizing that the beauty of doing that means that those blessings then flow on to me, as their child and that interconnectedness. Something very healing, very therapeutic about that, and very joyful about that even.

Candice Wu 57:11

It feels so, I’m not sure, redeeming is a right word?

Joy Curran 57:15

Yeah.

Candice Wu 57:16

Like redeeming of those parts of you, that are your parents, that you’re putting, your giving blessing. And then it just cycles back to you. And it’s something outside and inside.

Joy Curran 57:28

Exactly. I think it’s a good picture of how we actually are all interconnected, even though we may not realize it. And to be able to bless those who cause us pain and mean it from the heart. That’s very freeing.

Joy Curran 57:48

And it means that no matter what people do to you, you can experience joy. Because I can bless my enemies. And honestly wish them good. And just wholeness and financial blessings, and just everything to have a beautiful, joyful life. And that somehow comes back to me.

Candice Wu 58:13

It’s like transforming the energy completely.

Joy Curran 58:16

It is.

Candice Wu 58:16

Of what was there.

Joy Curran 58:17

It really is.

Candice Wu 58:18

Yeah, exactly. Incredibly empowering. Thank you for sharing that.

Joy Curran 58:24

You’re welcome!

Candice Wu 58:24

It’s so, I can feel it, kind of chills in my body. I mean, it’s not a new concept.

Joy Curran 58:29

Yeah.

Candice Wu 58:30

Hearing you speak to it. And your heart coming through from it, makes me want to go home and do that.

Candice Wu 58:39

You know? What’s left over for now.

Joy Curran 58:40

And that’s the thing, like, I thought I’d forgiven everyone a long time ago. But, doing this just kind of took it a step further.

Candice Wu 58:50

Yeah.

Joy Curran 58:51

And just really erased any residual unforgiveness that I didn’t even realize was there.

Candice Wu 58:57

I think that’s the thing about human life, the complexity is that we there are so many things that we don’t know that are there and then we only know them when we know them. And the layers of that can peel open, the more work we do with ourselves, the more expansion that we have, the more joy we have, I find it just wants to push out all the other things. Amen.

Candice Wu 59:20

And now it’s raining here!

Joy Curran 59:22

A beautiful symbol of abundance and blessing! You’ve got showers coming down.

Candice Wu 59:28

I know. I love it. Perth has so much rain, at least this winter.

Joy Curran 59:33

Yes. And I’m quite thankful for that, I think, to have an abundance of water.

Joy Curran 59:39

Yeah. So necessary.

Joy Curran 59:41

Yes. Very much so.

Candice Wu 59:43

So there — I want to just pull back to something you said, about blessing and prayer. And we started off with a prayer and you offer that, I appreciate that. And I noticed on your intake form that you had a checkbox, like, do you want to start with a prayer and I wanted to offer space for you to speak about that. Because I know that even though I’m not, I don’t call myself Christian or Catholic, or use the Bible in the same way you are. I always appreciate a prayer when it comes from love, when it feels like it is a blessing. It’s, you know, it’s a loving gesture.

Candice Wu 1:00:26

It just doesn’t even matter, then, you know what format it’s coming in, but I want to offer that space for you to to speak about that with your clients and with your work.

Joy Curran 1:00:38

Thank you. Yeah, and I think that is important. What you’ve noticed about that coming from that space of love. Because I think love has got to be the foundation of everything we do as healers and practitioners. Because without it, I might as well just pack up and go home, I think.

Candice Wu 1:00:58

Right. Yeah.

Candice Wu 1:00:59

What else is it about?

Joy Curran 1:01:00

Exactly. Yeah.

Joy Curran 1:01:02

So for me, trying to do prayer without that space just doesn’t compute. It doesn’t make sense to me. But I do know that some people do that. But that’s not me.

Joy Curran 1:01:15

So for me, it really depends on what you’re comfortable with. I limit myself depending on what the client is comfortable with. What I experience is miraculous breakthroughs through prayer that wouldn’t otherwise happen. And I’m talking even physical, you know, miracles.

Joy Curran 1:01:35

So I had a young woman who had seen me once, and then she attempted suicide, a month later, unrelated to me. And then she came back to see me as part of her condition of getting out of the hospital that she come and see me again. And so she would slit her wrists across ways. And she damaged nerves that they couldn’t repair. And she said, “Now, every time I move my arm like this, I get this tingling in my fingers. And there’s nothing the doctors can do about it. I’ve got it for the rest of my life.” And I said, “Would you like me to pray about that?” She says, “Oh, yeah, if you want to.”

Joy Curran 1:02:20

And she describes herself as a believer, but not a follower. So she believes that God is real, but she doesn’t by any means try and follow Him. And so, I just said a simple little prayer. And I said, try it out now. And it was still there. And so I said, another prayer. And then, she just like this look on her face. And she was just like, her jaw dropped. And she was like, wow, and she was like, trying to like, test it out.

Joy Curran 1:02:52

And, it was completely gone.

Candice Wu 1:02:53

In minutes?

Joy Curran 1:02:55

Completely gone in minutes.

Joy Curran 1:02:57

So, some healing miracle that happened where the nerves were kind of moved or healed. Somehow, I didn’t even know how, but that problem that she had didn’t exist anymore. So we got things like that.

Joy Curran 1:03:11

I had another experience with the same woman, coincidentally, at a year later, and she was complaining to me saying, I’ve got to give up smoking because she was coughing. And it was really impacting along some — and I just felt impressed. I tried to be very intuitive, and I just felt impressed to ask her if she was interested in doing a listening prayer.

Joy Curran 1:03:34

So a listening prayer means we basically just give God space to speak to us whatever’s on his heart to speak to us. And so she was like, “I don’t mind listening.” So, okay, so I just said a little prayer, inviting God to come speak. And before I’d finished speaking the prayer, this waste removal truck drove up.

Joy Curran 1:03:58

It’s kind of one of those moments where you’re like, “Interruption to my prayer time,” but I looked around and like, waste removal truck? There’s something about that. So I said to her, “Oh, what are you getting? Is anything coming to mind?” And she’s like, “Oh, no,” I said, I noticed a waste removal truck just drove up.

Joy Curran 1:04:19

Sometimes, God speaks to us through our surroundings, in our environment. I said, “I think God saying he wants to remove some rubbish from your life.” I said, “Would you be willing to give him some rubbish?” And she said, “Oh, no, I’m not ready for that yet. I’m okay. That’s no problem.”

Joy Curran 1:04:36

We moved on to the next thing that we’re talking about. A couple of minutes later, she said to me, “I can breathe.”

Joy Curran 1:04:45

I said, “What do you mean, you can breathe?” She’s like, “All the tar for my lungs has gone, I can breathe.” And I was just like, “That is so awesome!” whether or not she was ready to get rid of the rubbish. It was going. Yeah.

Joy Curran 1:05:02

So I get these beautiful, miraculous moments when I use prayer. And so I always like to give people the opportunity to be open to that if they want to.

Candice Wu 1:05:13

That’s beautiful. And it’s really cool that people are just willing to try it sometimes.

Joy Curran 1:05:17

Yeah.

Candice Wu 1:05:18

And can find some miracle in it or something different. Just being open.

Joy Curran 1:05:24

Yeah,

Candice Wu 1:05:25

I am very grateful that we get to be doing a session together. So thank you so much for both this part of the podcast and for the session we’re going to be having. Before we shift gears and end this segment, where can people find you?

Joy Curran 1:05:44

Well, my website is one place, equineassistedlearning.com.au. I’m reasonably active on Facebook. So facebook.com/alignedlivingeal. I post quite regularly pictures of clients interacting with horses or little things I see around the place, little birds and animals and things that show up and that can be quite fun. I also put some events on there from time to time, retreats and things, and I’ve also active on Instagram. I confess, my daughter runs it for me. I’m not that Instagram-savvy. But my daughter is my life-saver there. And yes, so @alignedliving is my tag on Instagram.

Candice Wu 1:06:31

Okay, lovely. I will find you there.

Joy Curran 1:06:34

That’s great.

Candice Wu 1:06:35

Is there anything else before we close?

Joy Curran 1:06:38

I’ve really enjoyed it.

Joy Curran 1:06:40

Some moment of EXHALES

Candice Wu 1:06:44

I feel that too, especially the rain coming down harder.

Joy Curran 1:06:49

That release, clouds emptying out, what they’ve been carrying around. Happens to be a blessing to us. Thank you.

Candice Wu 1:06:59

Thank you so much.

Joy Curran 1:07:01

Can I finish with a blessing?

Candice Wu 1:07:04

Please do.

Joy Curran 1:07:05

May God bless you and keep you. May he cause his face to shine upon you. And grant you peace in every area of your life. May be blessed as he goes in and as he comes out, and in all that you do, Jesus name. Amen.

Candice Wu 1:07:24

Amen.

Candice Wu 1:07:28

Thank you so much.

Joy Curran 1:07:30

You’re welcome.

Candice Wu 1:07:31

Thank you.

Candice Wu 1:07:38

I’m so grateful that I got to come out to the horse farm where Chaya lives and where Joy works to have a session with her, and to have this conversation with her.

Candice Wu 1:07:48

I hope you found this episode inspiring and intriguing, just like I did, and if it does call to you, feel free to check out the video that will come out later this week, highlighting the session that I had with her which is quite vulnerable and deep.

Candice Wu 1:08:03

Joy has a special deal for her Embody Podcast listeners. If you mentioned the Embody Podcast that you’ve listened to, you get to receive 20% off of your first session with Aligned Living, that’s her company. And if you book six sessions, you’ll receive a bonus seventh session free. That sounds awesome. And if I’m in Perth again, I will definitely take that up.

Candice Wu 1:08:24

You can find all this information, as well as Joy’s contact info, in the show notes linked to this episode or you can go to her website at www.equineassistedlearning.com.au.

Candice Wu 1:08:38

It was truly a magical experience to meet Joy and to work with her horse, Chaya.

Candice Wu 1:08:43

Chaya is just sweet and loving and affectionate and will just go for what she wants, moves around with ease. And that just taught me a lot, even witnessing her move around.

Candice Wu 1:08:56

Thank you so much for joining us in this very special episode with Joy Curran in Australia. And before you go, I’d like to invite you to join my newsletter which comes out twice a month. This newsletter offers healing meditations, self-love notes, information about upcoming events and offerings. You can also become part of the Embody Community on Facebook, check it out at CandiceWu.com/embody.

Candice Wu 1:09:22

And if newsletters or the community aren’t your thing, you might check out my Patreon page at CandiceWu.com/patreon where you can even contribute $1 a month and where you can get access to receiving personalized healing meditations that are tailored just for you, for the time of your life right now, and whatever you need.

Candice Wu 1:09:43

Hope you’re all doing well out there, sending my love to you and see you next time on the Embody Podcast.