Candice Wu 0:00

Today’s episode is with special guests Suzi Tucker, where we look at how nuance requires courage, hoarding expression, and the questions around life and do we bother to take ourselves seriously? Can we look instead of not look, in order to honor our experiences? And do we let ourselves complete things so we can feel our own competence?

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 0:38

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

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Candice Wu 1:33

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Candice Wu 2:05

Welcome back, everyone. It’s great to have you here today. And it’s a really an honor to have Suzi Tucker on the show today.

Candice Wu 2:13

Suzi is one of my Family Constellations teachers. She facilitates Family Constellations beautifully, and she can just practically speak the language of anyone. She has this beautiful flair for tuning into the language set of you, and where you came from your ancestry, the things that you picked up along the way, to touch into the antidote and the missing pieces of what’s not been said, or the healing step that can be acknowledged.

Candice Wu 2:43

Whenever I talk to Suzi, I feel like we are working with life as a piece of artwork. And I just feel this artistry come through, where I can look at my life in a non-linear way, where I just feel the movements and the subtleties with more beauty.

Candice Wu 3:05

What I’ve experienced with Suzi, as a client, and as a student, is that, whatever words I’m bringing to the struggle of my situation, seem to just open up an entire field of what’s happened in my family ancestry, so that it can be honored and released and then I no longer have to carry it or be loyal to some pain or dynamic, and then I can be free or in my life now to step into the possibilities that I didn’t even know we’re there, to feel more ease and myself as I walk into any situation and just exist in this life now.

Candice Wu 3:45

Suzi’s also a writer, and it’s through writing that she became interested in the work of Bert Hellinger, who developed Family Constellations as the editor in chief of Zeig, Tucker, and Theisen publishers.

Candice Wu 3:57

While she was in her career in publishing, she co-founded the Bert Hellinger Institute and went on to study, teach, and facilitate Family Constellations on her own. She is incredibly gifted and quite magical. So here’s Suzi.

Candice Wu 4:13

Well, Suzi, I am so happy that you’re here with me today. And that we get to have this conversation. This is already a gift for me.

Candice Wu 4:21

Suzi, you’ve been my teacher and colleague. And that’s a little bit hard to say, because I see you in a different space. And we can talk about that a little bit. I just want to welcome you today.

Suzi Tucker 4:33

Thank you. It’s a gift for me as well, Candice. I enjoy these conversations in general, because, for me, they are just conversations. But, I wrote this too. I love how you’re showing up in the world. And it’s my great honor to join you for a little while today.

Suzi Tucker 4:55

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it’s funny, just as you’re talking, I’m thinking that one of the differences between my life now and, I always laugh, because I don’t know, 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 20 years ago, is the kind of opening of portals of expression.

Candice Wu 4:55

Thank you. When you said that, that just meant so much to me, because it’s something I’ve been working on with you specifically. And I see how you show up in the world. And I read what you write. And, I just love how you’re sharing bits and pieces of your experience, and in a way that feels so humble and informative, and offering, and I appreciate that so much about you.

Suzi Tucker 5:27

I think that, when I think of how life has changed, can change, there is a place where there is so much inside of all of us. And there has been so much inside of me that at a certain point, the idea of not expressing it, became a really destructive feeling. And that simple expression, whether it’s to write or to, you know, I’m a crappy painter, but I love to paint. Or, I also do some drawing, which is worse than my painting. But I love that too. Or, walking or speaking to you.

Suzi Tucker 6:44

These portals of communication and expression alleviate sort of internal pressure there. I love the idea that I can bring something to somebody else. And that act of creativity is very, we try to avoid the word healing. But that’s the word that comes to me, a healing for me. So these moments are reciprocal.

Candice Wu 7:11

That’s lovely. Yeah, I can really resonate with that in a similar way. I was experiencing that I was hoarding, all the things I wanted to say. And that related so much to my family system, feeling like they didn’t have enough, and not being enough, and hoarding all of that. And it’s funny how that showed up in ways with objects in my family’s life, like objects in the home.

Suzi Tucker 7:40

Yeah.

Candice Wu 7:41

But then for me, it showed up in the way I was afraid to express myself, and still am, some days, but I’m just aware of the fact of letting that come through.

Suzi Tucker 7:54

I love that! I haven’t got to use that word before. But of course, I love words. So, I’m going to just, you know, very publicly here, listed from you.

Candice Wu 8:07

Feel free.

Suzi Tucker 8:09

But that idea of hoarding expression, I think, is a really useful idea. Because, again, you know, when you think about the, you know, this little hoarding, we collect so much, too much about it, topples over onto us and can actually suffocate us, right?

Candice Wu 8:31

Yeah.

Suzi Tucker 8:31

So that idea of hoarding emotion, hoarding expression, with the assumption that we’re somehow not worthy. And of course, in a way, that’s a dual assumption, because there is the sense, you know, I think always from our systems, in one way or another, that we’re not allowed, where we don’t have enough, or what we say is not important to not.

Suzi Tucker 8:55

And at the same time, there is a request, an implicit request that the world comes toward us to validate us. And so, it’s a funny sort of insecure, difficult place that also has, I think, a very young expectation or wish that comes with it. And of course, the more we wish, in a way, the more passive we are. And the more passive we are, the more suffocated we are, so these ways of expression.

Suzi Tucker 9:32

And when I see you do the interviews, and I see you do the podcasts in it, I haven’t seen the photographs that you post and the statements that you make, they’re like throwing pebbles into the water, and you don’t know where those circles are going to extend to you. You’re only, you know, it’s an act of faith to throw the pebble. And then there’s this beautiful thing of those circles reach some of us and we look back at you Candice and we say, “Yes, this has meaning to me.”

Suzi Tucker 10:06

And other people, perhaps the circles don’t reach, but you don’t even know it, because you’re tossing the next pebble. And they got that kind of consistent tossing of the pebbles, is where it’s at, on some level. And that’s humble, I suppose. And it has a certain audacity too. A kind of beautiful audacity.

Candice Wu 10:38

That’s a lovely image. I actually was having something similar the other day thinking about how I want to act and be, and the experience of how do I connect with anything that I’m doing, maybe it’s writing a bill for taxes and how can I feel into this, for whatever it is, and feel that it’s something that might be interesting or joyful or helpful to me, and let that be a bit of like, sprinkling of joy into my life, and just let each act contain that, as it goes out, and then it’s done. So I can feel the fullness of it. And because I think I can feel the dark side of things a lot easier now in my life, because I’ve worked so hard at it, but to feel the light of the joy in it, and how good something might be, as well in the fullness of a moment, then it feels just like a complete act.

Suzi Tucker 11:47

Sorry, as you’re talking, I got a picture of quite literally of, you know, pressing shut or licking the envelope and others are acts of completion. And I think actually something that we can take the opportunity if we are so absurdist to do that to, kind of, let ourselves complete things and let ourselves feel that kind of competence of completion. You know, I think that there is, you know, for me — of course, I go through phases of, you know, what I’m interested in as I’m teaching.

Suzi Tucker 12:27

And, you know, one of the things I’m really interested in is people feeling their own competence. And, of course, that’s because I feel more competent than I did, you know, three weeks ago and it’s a great relief because that’s a big space — competence is a big space. And I think competence is filled with these moments of small completions that’s related to integration as well, that if we don’t have these moments of small completions, then every next thing that we do has a little bit of residue that we feel and no longer attend to. And as we move on, you know, that residue builds. And, you know, we feel that drag of it even though our minds have forgotten what it’s related to. So, I love the idea of the moments of small completion.

Suzi Tucker 13:31

And the other thing that comes to mind is you’re paying your taxes. It is so big that I actually find very helpful to me when I’m in moments of anxiety that it has to do with taxes or doctors. Or you know, I interact it badly with somebody and I can feel that. And I’m not quite sure what to do about it at anybody.

Suzi Tucker 13:54

One of the things that was really helpful to me is kind of feeling myself close with all the people who are paying their taxes or going to the doctor, or who have interacted badly today. And it’s a funny thing, right? But, I think so much of the price we pay is because we feel isolated in whatever anxiety we’re experiencing.

Suzi Tucker 14:24

So, you know, in addition to graphs and all those good things that the mindfulness teachers teach us, I also have this sense of being shoulder to shoulder with others and not in isolation.

Candice Wu 14:38

That’s extremely helpful. I mean, I can just feel it. It’s like an easing up in my body that just lets it move a little easier. Like we don’t need to punish ourselves by being alone in it.

Suzi Tucker 14:57

Right. And then that’s — I think that’s a good, you know, another good word that’s kind of a self-punitive behavior. It’s very isolated. It’s very private. Other people don’t even know what we’re talking about.

Candice Wu 15:14

Yeah, thank you. Well, we just jumped right in Suzi. But I want to backtrack a little bit and offer some space for you to share who you are today. You’ve been doing Constellations work for a long time and would you introduce yourself to the audience listening?

Suzi Tucker 15:33

Of course, yeah. Haven’t done it.

Suzi Tucker 15:37

I’m Suzi Tucker and yeah, I’ve been doing Constellation work in one way or another since 1998, actually. Beginning in the book world where I met Constellation work and I met Bert Hellinger, Hunter Beaumont, Günter Weber who really were the pillars of Constellation work way back then.

Suzi Tucker 16:08

And so I started as a publisher literally publishing Bert’s first books, and working as an editor to sort of translate from the translation into what I thought, you know, it’s like a therapeutic audience might understand or find useful.

Suzi Tucker 16:33

So that was, you know, my first steps whereas the translator and I would say in a way, that’s where I feel my strength now as well. That I look to the core observations of the work and I attempt to translate them not protectively but translate that kind of essential piece that brought to the world. That itself is an assimilation of many, many things, and integration of many, many ways of thinking, and many thinkers. So I still see myself, sort of, as a translator in away. I started organizing for Bert in, I think, around 2000, and I started working with a man named Harald Hohnen, who was the main teacher then and a truly magnificent teacher. And we organized, on the East Coast, the first courses that actually taught, trained many of the people who are working in the field today still. And I am so proud when I see these different people. And then in my mind site, I see them in this circle at the New York Core Center on 23rd Street in Manhattan, learning from Hamiltonian and eventually that held, went back to Germany. And he kind of what I say is, he kind of kicked me in the butt frankly and it hurt.

Suzi Tucker 18:24

To facilitate and teach, I think, the way he saw it was what he had taught me. And I, you know, referred back to this site — You know, we started out talking about this idea of insecurity and how there’s a certain kind of conceit in that sometimes. And obviously, I speak from direct wherein I both felt very insecure and shy about the idea of teaching. And I think what he reacted to was — I was sort of asking for him to validate me and what his perspective was, was, “I gave you a gift, are you giving it back?” And it was the first time I started really kind of thinking about how a certain kind of insecurity asks too much of the world. And I started just going out there. Well, before I felt ready because, you know, I would still not be doing it. And I suppose if I waited to feel ready, and I started facilitating very small workshops in the early 2000s. And I started teaching and I just kept showing up. I was amazed by my own behavior. I was amazed that I was being tenacious about something. I would say, prior to these moments — the teaching — my great power was that if it didn’t succeed immediately, I would simply withdraw from whatever it was.

Suzi Tucker 20:11

I was experiencing myself differently without knowing why beforehand. I think I was engaged back then, in the beginnings of a real creative life. A sort of artist’s life, which is how I see facilitation to this day. You know, the idea of, “Who am I now?” Well, I don’t know because as soon as I articulate it, it will be passed. I know that my job is to show up, learn languages very quickly. You know, my kind of artist’s way here is to invite people in and enter into brief collaborations in which I offer a way of seeing that inspires them to a new way of seeing. And the way that I can do that, or the reason I can do that, is because I’m not caught in the self self-limiting beliefs or vista that they’re caught in. And so I get to join people in these moments of soft or brilliant, and sometimes they’re very subtle, and sometimes they’re dramatic collaborations. And that I keep showing up for because it’s like choreography or being in a symphony, or putting paint to canvas or words to a page, and getting to work with others and doing that. And learning how to integrate and learning how to keep going toward more.

Suzi Tucker 22:13

And you talked before about this idea of darkness. And I think, yeah, we all have that darkness, right? And what creativity does is it allows for an imbalance to happen so that largeness or lightness, or expansiveness, any of those words, becomes the bigger thing for a moment. And in that moment, it can encompass or envelop or integrate the darkness. And then the darkness can have a place and become a part of creativity, not separate from it.

Candice Wu 22:51

I can see that as you’re saying it. And you said, putting paint to canvas or words to a page, in my experience of working with you as a client and as a student, I experienced also this crossover of that, of like, words to the paint.

Suzi Tucker 23:11

That’s beautiful because —

Candice Wu 23:12

And that just leads me to — Yeah, go ahead.

Suzi Tucker 23:16

Well, I was just gonna say, I want to hear this leads me to, but just as you say — I have to say, that is actually my mother and my father. So, they just came and said —

Candice Wu 23:35

How do you want to say a little more on how you see that?

Suzi Tucker 23:37

Yeah. Well, I, you know, it’s something that is funny. I see it in increments, right? So in this moment, I saw thought so clearly. And I began to see it in a probably more formal way years ago, because it occurred to me to try to see it, right? To try to kind of create or feel into what it was that I was bringing forward.

Suzi Tucker 24:06

Now, it comes upon me in moments of surprise. It’s not formal anymore. So, my mother was all about language and she was actually a brilliant editor. And a very, very strong writer, although it’s something that she — I think, was always more comfortable — not happier, but more comfortable facilitating others. And my father was an artist and was a good drawer, could really render likenesses in a very, very good way. He drew. He was a fashion artist. So long time ago, you know, they would use fashion illustration in the New York Times or in the fashion magazines. And he did that before I knew him. And I have little, tiny, I guess, what were ads slipped out of magazines in a box that he did and, you know, very gestural and evocative drawings. And so I feel that words have that movement, have that possibility of gesture and movement, and cadence. And I think of him and I think, yeah, he was a poet with his lines on the page. And in a way through as an artist with her words so somehow they come together in me, at least in my interests.

Candice Wu 25:47

Yeah. That gives me chills. Yeah. I experience you as doing that, as using words. It’s almost like tuning right into the place where words either were silenced or what the experience of something really demands to be seen and experienced. And that you place that somehow the words seem to just come right out of your mouth.

Suzi Tucker 26:21

Yeah, that’s interesting. They, you know, some — No, no, what some? What I, you know — that it is also a collaborative experience. And that the words that come out of my mouth are in this sort of words that float or perhaps actually are underneath, maybe they’re not above, they’re actually underneath. Both my lineage, my system, and the lineage and system of the person with whom I’m working. And so it’s almost like they are the drops that when you scratch at the root of something, and liquid comes out, the liquid that feeds the flower or the plant, or the tree, that those words are underneath the systems. And that their silence not only for the client, but the client’s silence or experience of being quieted, or being directed to express in a certain way, is always nested in other people’s quiet, right?

Suzi Tucker 27:46

So the mother or the father who is heavy-handed in their expectation of a child, what he or she can say, right, is always nested in a previous experience of that. It doesn’t come from the mother or the father, it comes through the mother or father.

Suzi Tucker 28:11

And so my sense of what’s being expressed in those moments where it does resonate, where it’s not just me, sort of, imposing my will which sometimes happens as well, you know, I so much want somebody to get whatever it is that I see. That my voice gets high in my chest and has a kind of quality of untruth in it. But when I’m at my best, when I am most attuned, I’m actually hearing what is in the depths or the ground in the other person’s system. And it is always about in a way where the force of love got either circumvented, somehow, right?

Suzi Tucker 29:03

Almost cut off. Not cut off, but almost cut off and distorted somehow because I think, you know, the work that we do is all about love. But love is not necessarily a positive thing. Love is the force like the wind, right? So sometimes the wind blows too hard and topples us over, right? Or sometimes we feel that we can’t get a breath. We can’t — The wind is not blowing enough. There’s no breeze, we can’t move.

Suzi Tucker 29:40

So those words, those resonant words are in accord with just the right wind. You know, love, just the right love, just the right kind of sweet love that can keep us going. So, I feel all my language, when it’s at its best, is collaborative. I don’t have that language by myself. I only have it with you, or with whomever I’m sitting beside.

Candice Wu 30:14

That’s really powerful. It feels like it acknowledges so much. And that’s something I continue to learn from you is how do we embrace more in the picture and more behind us, and more that’s embedded or nested, as you said, in the experience.

Candice Wu 30:34

And I’m wondering about, if this is part of what you might speak about with, you have a program called, “The Right to Write.” And, you know, we’ve talked about — I think it was the first time that I wanted to facilitate, and you asked me, “Do I have a right to?” And I had — I didn’t know what it really meant. And I sat with it and thought about it, and felt it. And then somehow I came up with, “Yes, I do.” That I don’t even know, you know, what that was, but can you say more about this? And is this part of the “Right to Write” that you experience is collaborating? And that’s a very generalized question.

Suzi Tucker 31:27

No. It’s a great question. I just think it’s, I really get that if you’d sit back. And first of all, say, “What the hell is she asking me?”

Candice Wu 31:35

Yeah.

Suzi Tucker 31:36

And then, kind of, sit back and think. Well, also, I wonder like, you know, what is being asked? And I wonder, right?

Candice Wu 31:46

Yeah.

Suzi Tucker 31:47

And then the answer, you know, I feel that internal “yes” is exactly what allows one to kind of throw that first pebble because that’s really just really what it is. You know, do I have that kind of bandwidth to throw that first pebble? Because once I do that, something is going to come back to me and I’m prepared in a way to catch it and work with that and say, “Okay, again. Yes. Again.”

Suzi Tucker 31:47

So, you know, the “Right to Write”, I think is — this sense of, if we have to be perfect, and I always, you know, I always argue with the word “perfection” because I think people forget how idiosyncratic is that. Even that idea is — You know, people say, “I realized I didn’t have to be perfect.” But perfect is a completely fluid concept. One person’s perfection is absolutely not the other person’s perfection, right?

Candice Wu 32:59

Yeah. Right.

Suzi Tucker 33:01

But it is this sense of — You know, if I can allow for my own flaws to be fluid so that at some point that if I keep going those very things that are flaws that I detect as vulnerabilities, flaws, difficulties, outright things that I hate about myself, if I can stay fluid with them, actually they become strengths elsewhere, right?

Suzi Tucker 33:34

So what I have to be convinced of the right to write is the right to keep going.

Suzi Tucker 33:42

Now, we can say we wake up every day and we keep going. But that’s not what I mean, right?

Suzi Tucker 33:48

I mean, this sense that the parameters are — So the parameters which feel to me as limitations when I look back, they’re only limitations because I try to live within them, right? So, I must keep going. I have to actually allow myself to move outside of the limitations that are behind me right? In order to feel, you know, going back to this idea of competence, in order to feel my own permission to do so.

Suzi Tucker 34:33

In other words, you know, Bert Hellinger said many years ago in one of his many aphorisms, and you know, he has so many aphorisms. I don’t think he knows which are actually his, but he chooses deliberately what to quote anyway.

Candice Wu 34:51

Yeah.

Suzi Tucker 34:52

But one of the things that he said is that people are under the impression that insight leads to action and truthfully, action leads to insight. And others have said this, and I have said it a million times to myself. That when I sit back and think, that only gets me so far. I need to sit back and rest, and then stand up again and take a step. And then thought comes to me — New thought comes to me, and with each actual step that I take outside of the limitations of the past, which are only limitations for me, they’re not limitations for you know, I look back and I look at my mother and my father. And I look at their lineages, right? And for me, those are limitations going deeper into my life. But as I look back, I see for them, they were parameters, right?

Suzi Tucker 36:01

So in other words, forging the new path is exactly how I move out and exactly how I convince myself of my own right to do so. Because with each step that I take out of their limitations, out of those parameters that are not my parameters, my love grows for them, my respect grows for them, my gratitude groves, but I have to take this step for that to happen. Does that make any sense?

Candice Wu 36:40

Yes, it makes complete sense. I’m touching into the movement and the whole body moving for more to come. And for the response of inner and outer to arise, as well as what the parameters for your parents, or who’s behind you, become limitations or could have seemed to have been limitations for you, if you followed the same parameters and parameter and limitation if I’m getting you right, Suzi. And parameter and limitations sound so different. What sounds to me like, well, it relates to something that I experienced too, which is where I’m touching in is the parameters that my grandmother lived by, if I’m living by the same ones, they become limitation, but I can see an honor how actually, that was expansion for her.

Suzi Tucker 37:40

Absolutely. That’s beautifully said.

Candice Wu 37:44

And then it’s not for me anymore. It’s not an expansion for me. It was what I lived in, and what came through.

Suzi Tucker 37:51

Right.

Candice Wu 37:51

Minus a new expansion.

Suzi Tucker 37:53

That’s right. And that’s so perfectly said, because, you know, in your new expansion, there, you know, sort of like at your back, you can feel the warmth, and it’s fun to go back to the beginning of our conversation, at your back you could feel the warmth of completion. And in your body, you can feel the competence of movement. And at your front, we feel the lightness and possibility.

Candice Wu 38:23

Yes.

Suzi Tucker 38:25

And that becomes the warmth of completion for your children, for your students, Candice, for your clients, for your future. I can be that kind of warmth of completion for the future. And still, for me, it’s the lightness of what’s to come, those things.

Candice Wu 38:51

It just feels magical. Thank you, like I’m tingling inside. Thank you for that. Thank you for the words.

Suzi Tucker 39:01

Oh, you’re welcome. Yeah, I was laughing. You didn’t think I was so cynical.

Candice Wu 39:11

Why is that?

Suzi Tucker 39:14

I don’t know, in my mind, I think of myself as a deeply cynical —

Candice Wu 39:18

Oh, that’s funny!

Suzi Tucker 39:20

When I hear my words come out of my mouth, and I think well, I believe that was the parameters of my mother and father, it’s important to me because, you know, it’s sort of where humor comes from, but it actually is not fully mine at least not in that same way.

Candice Wu 39:45

Yeah. Well, the last time we spoke, we talked about the sentences that aren’t spoken in the family lineage. Those are the words that get passed down, or that we hold connection with, that want to be spoken. And I felt like that was just so helpful. Something about that completed or felt at the time, it completed a piece of understanding trauma to me.

Candice Wu 40:17

It’s like, how do we receive words about ourselves and the world that we may or may not have connection within our personal life, except then we’ve created connection with it or lived in it. But that really gave me a new understanding of words.

Suzi Tucker 40:36

I love that.

Candice Wu 40:37

Also, I’m just recalling back to when I first learned with you about the sentence, and I’m just wondering how that’s evolving for you? And what I’m referring to is, I don’t think I’ll say it as I learned it from you, but the aspect of a sentence and that association to a death sentence. Is that a death sentence, a sentence or speaking that sends us to that destructive place? Or, what kind of sentence are you saying to yourself or to the world?

Suzi Tucker 41:11

Right. And it’s funny, I would put it the opposite in a way because I think that in this case, the opposite actually includes what you’re saying, right? So it’s fun. It’s a funny, and maybe it goes back to the light and dark, right, that the madness can hold the dark, where the darkness tends to snuff out the light.

Suzi Tucker 41:35

The way I see it is as a life sentence, right? So a life sentence is either one of two things, it is either the sentence that we live with, for our life, right. And that tends to be driven by the generational experience. And it tends to be fear-driven sentence, whether it’s mean or it’s overly increasing, or it’s, you know, too much or too little, the reason it lacks nuances because it’s fear-driven and nuance requires courage in a way, to say I’m responsible and I love you and I have power and I feel vulnerable.

Suzi Tucker 42:23

Those are nuances that require a certain, very deep level of confidence to experience let alone say. So those kind of difficult life sentences are fear-driven messages that come through the generations, right?

Suzi Tucker 42:44

And they come from visceral reactions to things so you know in constellations one looks for the event often not so much to redress the event, for God’s sakes, who would I be to redress slavery or the Holocaust? Or, you know somebody’s home burning down when they were 2 years old, that to me is ridiculous, and that is a terrible conceit.

Suzi Tucker 43:17

However, to see that certain messages came through the direct reactions to those events, which are fear-driven people run away, you know, all the fight, flight, freeze things that we talked about in ourselves, of course, we’re nested in them too, right?

Suzi Tucker 43:38

The sentence that comes from freeze, so this sentence that comes from flight is, feels like they’re really big one or the sentence that comes from fight, those messages that come down through the generations and inform our bodies, often not our minds, not, we don’t know it, but we know it, right? Our gut says, “Be Afraid.” Our gut says, “Take out a knife.” Our gut says, “Reject before rejected.” Right?

Suzi Tucker 44:14

Whatever our gut says, in those instances, it’s not necessarily and I think often not an accurate read of what’s going on before us, but rather, a felt read of what went on behind us.

Suzi Tucker 44:33

So the good life sentences or the life sentences that are affirmations of life, are the sentences that Hellinger introduce this stem sentences. And I call them seed sentences. Because, I just like the idea of planting seeds, but there are sentences that are actually really in this system that are not, you know, they’re outside of, in addition to often forgotten sentences that are not fear-driven.

Suzi Tucker 45:11

They go back to the intrinsic faith of moving forward. So, there is an intrinsic part of every system that moves forward. And trauma gives us the impression that the system started in that place. But in fact, there was a time long before that. And the sense that we can kind of tap into the deepest parts of the system, the heartbeat, where the heart is still beating gives us the sentence that is not fear-driven, the message that is not fear-driven. And that message is always about, go into the future, live deep into your life. That’s the gift for us that reorganizes the past.

Candice Wu 46:15

I’m just laughing at myself because I guess I must have had so many death sentences to look at!

Candice Wu 46:23

Because now as you’re saying that, I remember this being about a life sentence.

Suzi Tucker 46:30

That is funny!

Suzi Tucker 46:31

Well, when you think about prisons, right? And you think, it’s saying a funny thing, or an interesting thing, you give somebody a death sentence, you take away all possibility, even the slightest time.

Candice Wu 46:49

Yeah.

Suzi Tucker 46:50

And you give somebody a life sentence. And not to say, that’s not going to be a very challenging life. But the one thing you don’t do is snuff out all possibility. So yeah, you know, I’m really interested, I think it is interesting for you, and you’ll think about it. I think the language that we speak to ourselves with is incredibly profound. And this phrase, self-talk, I said, “It’s like a — Yeah, it is self-talk.” But it’s also something deeper or more primal than self-talk. It is the way we hold ourselves, the way we understand ourselves. And I think we often do quite a job in entrancing ourselves in the past that we don’t even know in our mind. But we know so well, in our body.

Suzi Tucker 47:18

The idea of moving from death sentence to life sentence, and then from life sentence to life sentence, right? Life sentence, that’s really moving out like a trance.

Candice Wu 48:04

Absolutely. And it gives back the dimensions of “self-talk.” It brings back that depth of where it came from, and what it might refer to, and what clues we have from that of who we believe we are, how we’re holding ourselves.

Suzi Tucker 48:24

Yeah, beautiful.

Suzi Tucker 48:27

And it’s the movement, you know, I talked to people sometimes about this idea of moving from dynamic which has to do again, with, you know, the parameters being limitations for us, and simply being parameters for the people who came before us. So, that is moving out of a dynamic, into moving into relationship, right. And dynamic and relationship are two different things. The dynamic is a structure that we keep returning to and relationship is evolving by definition.

Suzi Tucker 49:03

So what you just said, I kind of hadn’t thought of it that before in terms of itself. Now, we are often in a dynamic with ourself, a habit. And moving into that more fluid, more surprising relationship with ourselves is, first and foremost, how we’re going to experience ourselves in the world differently. And the world in us differently.

Candice Wu 49:36

Yeah, that changes completely, the feel of it, and what we’re doing here, and I mean, what we’re doing here in terms of being human.

Suzi Tucker 49:46

Yeah, no. I do.

Candice Wu 49:48

Yeah, I think you got me. Yeah.

Suzi Tucker 49:51

I’ve heard that.

Candice Wu 49:52

Right. Like, what? What? We’re even here. Yeah.

Suzi Tucker 49:57

Right. I know, it’s like people, we talk about the search for meaning. It’s like, I don’t think it’s a search exactly. You know, I think the meaning is implicit. It is the sort of allowance for meaning, the bother to take it seriously.

Candice Wu 50:17

Yeah. Oh, I feel that one, the bother to take it seriously.

Suzi Tucker 50:24

Me too. That’s why it’s such enthusiasm because I know what it takes me to remind myself, I get into such a habit of a lethargic soul, you know.

Candice Wu 50:40

Yeah, well, what about it? I was curious to ask you, you know, what challenges you find for yourself now, as a person or facilitator teacher in any place?

Suzi Tucker 50:55

Well, it’s a little bit like, anything else that has to do, I think, with taking care of our internal and external selves, you know, it’s funny. It’s like, there are moments where I forget to care, and that’s both the inward and outward. And that’s a little bit like, it almost feels like a really young rebellion. And it feels like a very childish power. Well, I could not care.

Candice Wu 51:34

Yeah, because it sounds like the adult words are, “I forget to care.” But the younger part says something else, like, “I don’t want to care.”

Suzi Tucker 51:44

Stomp my feet, and, you know, put my hands across my chest and pretend that something, but I think that is, again, sort of a habit of not, you know, sometimes I say to people, and I say it to myself, most of all, I know very well that the world will go on without me, and it will do just fine. But it doesn’t have to.

Candice Wu 52:14

Beautiful.

Suzi Tucker 52:15

I can make a contribution, and that will give something and in that extending of my hand, I receive something before anything, or anyone even gives back.

Candice Wu 52:35

Yeah, that’s beautiful. That seems to go right back to where we started as well, in pebbles.

Suzi Tucker 52:46

Then, Candice, once I was sitting around, and a bunch of people were talking about enlightenment, and I get very quiet during these conversations, don’t know what the hell enlightenment is, really.

Suzi Tucker 53:01

And, so of course, you know, sometimes silence is very loud.

Suzi Tucker 53:08

So, one of the people at the table, who was the one person I didn’t know, turned to me and said, “You know, well, so what do you think it is, Suzi?”

Suzi Tucker 53:20

And the word that came out of my mouth was creativity. That is my belief system. And it’s my entire belief system, really.

Candice Wu 53:30

Wow. And you were earlier saying to me, creativity, learning is creativity.

Suzi Tucker 53:36

Right.

Candice Wu 53:36

One and the same. And that makes even more to the picture for me when you say that.

Suzi Tucker 53:41

That’s cool. You know, that’s funny. Because when you asked before, and I think I glossed over about the idea of, you know, what it takes to teach, and I think I’ve been through some shit, you know?

Candice Wu 53:56

Yeah.

Suzi Tucker 53:57

And I don’t wear this badge. But to say, there is something I know, in other people’s experience, because I’ve been through some stuff. And I will say, I come out the other side. I don’t know that I’ve come out anywhere. But I will say, that I continue to want to create. I continue to feel the revelation in that. And it keeps me happy. It keeps me joyful. It keeps me flexible. And I think when people come into a room where I’m teaching, they may dislike the way I teach, or not understand what the hell I’m talking about. Or, think what I’m saying is tried or not deep enough or too deep or whatever it is basically.

Suzi Tucker 54:55

But I think there is the feeling that somehow, she has been through some stuff, and she has retained joy. I want some of that.

Candice Wu 55:11

Yeah. Thank you. It makes a difference to me as well.

Candice Wu 55:17

And it’s something, what you’re saying now, is something that I really look to you to remember. It’s not always easy for me, I can get lost in some mind stuff, like talking about things that I may not know. Or, when I say no, like no in my body. And what I experience you doing, which feels so embodied is that you speak to what you experience, and you might go into realms beyond your experience and explore, this is just my perception. I don’t experience that you speak to things that you don’t know in your bones somehow, or that if you do, you’re acknowledging that in some way, to me, that feels really grounded.

Candice Wu 56:12

Do you perceive yourself that way? Is that landing somewhere for you?

Suzi Tucker 56:16

Yes. When you said, I recognize it. And I think that, sometimes people use the word humility, you know, there are words that people use, like humility, your intuition or certain words that people use that I’m not sure what’s meant by them in a certain way. But I think that actually, what folks are referring to is exactly that there is a kind of compass that each of us has, right. And I really try to respect my compass, even when I’m not for like, I don’t get ahead of it, I think.

Candice Wu 57:03

Yeah.

Suzi Tucker 57:03

I look to it. And I really try not to get ahead of it. And my body, you know, you talk so much about being Embodied, my body tells me so much, you know, I can feel when I am in a place that I have no business being, because I get immediately nauseous.

Suzi Tucker 57:28

And I don’t power through that. I don’t muscle through it. I stop and I look and I say, why is that? But I say that as I’m withdrawing from that space, and I go back to my compass, because if I don’t do that, and I power through that physical response mechanism in my body, then I’m left with such a narrow vocabulary where I have to blame the client for something, right?

Suzi Tucker 58:01

Or I have to become insecure and shy and somehow withdraw, right?

Suzi Tucker 58:09

But if I can go back to my compass and check-in and say, “Okay, you know, you were in a space you had no business being in.”

Suzi Tucker 58:20

How can you both return and not return in the same way? And it’s often through making contact with the person who actually is in that space, asking a question.

Suzi Tucker 58:34

Being, you know, that idea of “I see you.”

Suzi Tucker 58:38

Well, boy, sometimes, I think facilitators me is the facilitator. We really got to have that sentence, “I see you.” Not just offer it, we got to live it.

Candice Wu 58:52

Yeah. And that it is extremely powerful in itself. And it’s enough sometimes. Well, maybe it’s enough always.

Suzi Tucker 59:04

That’s a big little sentence, right?

Candice Wu 59:09

Right. Yeah. Well, Suzi, thank you so much. I really enjoyed this conversation with you and learn so much. Is there anything else that feels alive now or that you want to share?

Suzi Tucker 59:25

Well, first of all, I learned so much as well. And as a living example of a collaboration, you know, I heard myself say things I’ve never heard myself say. And I love that. It’s like new colors on the palate.

Candice Wu 59:45

Yeah.

Suzi Tucker 59:46

And I really invite people to explore in themselves, this sense of competence and the ability to integrate so that their feet irresistibly want to move down that road toward more.

Candice Wu 1:00:11

Thank you. I’ll receive that for myself as well.

Suzi Tucker 1:00:16

Yeah.

Candice Wu 1:00:17

Yeah, me too.

Suzi Tucker 1:00:21

Thank you so much. And whoever listens, thank you so much for listening. And yeah, let’s toss the pebble, okay?

Candice Wu 1:00:29

Yes. Thank you so much, Suzi.

Suzi Tucker 1:00:33

You’re welcome.

Candice Wu 1:00:34

Thank you. It’s been fabulous. And for all of the people listening, Suzi is going to be offering a guided experience. It’ll be a surprise, right? We’ll see.

Suzi Tucker 1:00:47

Me too.

Candice Wu 1:00:49

It’s only truly alive that way.

Suzi Tucker 1:00:52

Yes.

Candice Wu 1:00:52

Yes. So thank you so much. And you can look out for that if you’re listening in and until next time, Suzi

Suzi Tucker 1:01:01

Looking forward.

Candice Wu 1:01:04

Thank you all for tuning into our conversation today. And thank you, Suzi, so much for being on the show. It’s a huge honor and I feel just so invigorated and excited about moving into my life differently. Even by just the words that we brought to light today.

Candice Wu 1:01:22

If you found her resonance or words exciting to you interesting or intriguing, I’d encourage you to check out her work at suzitucker.com. She also is the writer of her book, Gather Enough Fireflies, which is available on Amazon.

Candice Wu 1:01:45

I appreciate her book very much because it’s small in size, but jam-packed with seeds of insight from her very personal experience.

Candice Wu 1:01:55

Suzi is also co-editor and contributing author to Messengers of Healing and the contributing author to For Couples: Ten Commandments for Every Aspect of Your Relationship Journey.

Candice Wu 1:02:07

Also, stay tuned this week because she will be offering a lovely guided experience around competency. If you don’t want to miss this, make sure to subscribe to the podcast. So you get the download straight to your device. And consider subscribing to my newsletter, which will give you all the information as well as other healing experiences and self-love tips. You can find all that at CandiceWu.com/embody.

Candice Wu 1:02:34

Thank you all again, and as we go, I want to send you off with some of Suzi’s thoughts, which I don’t know if I’ll get exactly right. But it goes something like this, “Well, the world would carry on without you. It is enriched by your presence.”

Candice Wu 1:02:50

Thank you all so much for being out there and listening in and for your existence. And with that, see you next time on The Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the podcast this week, you are listening to a special offering from Suzi Tucker, who was the guest this week, you can listen to her full episode at CandiceWu.com/suzi.

If you listen to the full episode, you might be coming in thinking that this episode is about competence. Well, you will be a little bit surprised but this just shows just how it is to be present to what is now. So sit back and enjoy this lovely reading by Suzi.

Suzi Tucker 0:35

Hello everyone, this is Suzi Tucker. Several weeks ago, I had the great good fortune to be interviewed by Candice Wu for the Embody Podcast and in our conversation, we spoke of many things, of our personal work and our work in the larger community, and it was so easy and lovely and wide-ranging.

And Candice further made an offer to me to create an independent piece and we were thinking perhaps a meditation or a guided imagery session. And when I thought about it, I thought, you know, when I was a kid, I loved it when people read to me. And even now, one of my favorite things in the world is to listen to the New Yorker short stories as I go to sleep. I often have to listen to the same one, several nights in a row because I don’t get through to the end or I don’t remember.

At any rate, I thought, you know what I’m going to read to you. So I invite you to sit back or sit up or lie down, keep your eyes open or closed, find the position that is comfortable for you.

I’m going to read to you from Gather Enough Fireflies, which is the book I wrote, well, way back in 2014. Amazing how time passes. And I opened randomly and then it seemed to connect with the conversation that Candice and I had about capacity. So I’m going to read to you Brevities #9. And I hope you find something in it that’s intriguing or inspiring, or relaxing.

Brevities #9: Living in the confusion between past and present. Everyday decisions sometimes feel overwhelming and we think we’re crazy and being overwhelmed by the common questions, which then adds to the discontinuity between what we desire and what we feel capable of. But in constellations, we open to a larger landscape and sometimes we see that the systemic dynamics that affect us were initiated further back than even our parents.

When we think about what prevents us from quitting, or following through, or initiating or anything else that might logically make life better, sometimes the feeling in the body is what we can really locate. The words that describe that feeling, the thoughts in our head, are already second hand, something we superimpose, a feeling of breathlessness or trembling, or paralysis. What is that feeling where you feel in the face of decision? What is on the other side of it? Perhaps it’s something really farfetched. I’ll disappear. I’ll be killed. I cannot bear being alone. Perhaps you can take a moment right now. Allow the problem or decision that’s right before you, let it enter your mind. I can’t stand my job. My marriage is horrible. I want to stop drinking. Why am I always so insecure? Whatever it is named, let it in then feel the words in your body. What comes up? How would you describe the feeling? I can’t breathe. My head hurts. Everything goes blank. It clusters behind my eyes and presses against my temples. It gathers in my chest and pushes me down. A little time travel.

These dramatic feelings around everyday problems make us feel crazy, or peculiar, or lazy or stupid or any of a number of other things. The drama queen, the crybaby, the raging bitch, the little mouse, the mean names we call ourselves and sometimes are called by others. But when we go back a generation, or two or three, we may find exactly where the feelings make absolute sense. Our right-sized responses, as opposed to insane reactions.

Let’s imagine. Where in your history was the price of speaking up too high, even death? Where was the complaint or condition received without compassion? Where did success, intelligent talent and knack for something, actually endanger life? Where are there perpetrators who could not face their own guilt or despair? Where are their victims who could not face their own anger or sense of defeat? Where did it benefit happen on the backs of others? Where did some abandoned others in order to go on? For whom do we get home, fight, punish the men, the women, the children, put aside our dreams, destroy our reality, belittle possibility, stay behind.

What has not ended in our hearts, in our deep and visceral life, the life that teams with hidden energy not sanctioned or even seen by our own awareness, events to which we connect concern life and death? Actions that caused the family system to lose its traction, perhaps for a long time, or even just momentarily and then head in another direction. Or, for example, changes the course of thousands of systems, victims, and perpetrators so that new survival, vocabularies evolve, and with them, new depths of grief, anger, distrust. More personally, a young boy loses his father when he’s three years old, his course is in execrable shifted.

In either case, the next generations will be navigating life and death, even as they are moving across the simpler plane of daily living. The original belonging to our family of origin is where we receive the information that has the greatest impact of any other information we ever receive. We don’t have the ability to resist those deep messages. Some of the messages have been carried through many generations, landing in us inadvertently. Events of the past can fragment the family leaving people to clamor for balance, visibility, justice, peace. The events that happened so long ago, even beyond our memory can affect us powerfully. Free-floating anxiety, or endless grief, or misunderstood terror may travel down to us and we take it on without deliberation, without the were withall or time to deliberate.

Now the feelings are without context, or they appear to be inconsistent with context with the one that is visible. And yet to our great frustration or worse, our hearts are captured and we seem bound and gagged when it comes to the present. Uncovering in events such as this can have positive repercussions. It may take just a split second to connect to that crazy reaction and understand it within the context of a certain life movement. Once we see it, we can bring it to light.

We can gather moreover data though the long, obscured information that comes through the body, through dreams, through the multigenerational sub-panel, can be reflected back to its original owners. Oh, I see. I share this with you. I don’t need to carry it all. Certainly, none of our ancestors close or far, prisoner or guard, will be brought back or brought peace through our suffering.

If anything, our doing well, is the bomb for those who stand behind us. They paid a price and still through us, life goes on. Perhaps it will be in a good way. We cannot relieve them of the burden of their suffering. But we can relieve them of the burden of ours.

We have received difficult messages from the past. We can send beautiful messages back. The message is in our joy, our fulfillment, our greater ease with the present and with finding pleasure in creating greater continuity between what we reach for and the felt permission to actually take it into our hands and hold it as our own.

Our forebears’ sacrifices gain greater meaning as we take life in and feel able and welcomed to contribute something more to it. Our contribution will, by definition, include something of them, of our parents, grandparents, great grandparents, ancestors as far back as time itself.

In this way, with this expanding image, we can honor the past rather than join with it.

Thank you so much for listening.

Candice Wu 0:00

In this episode, I have a special guest, Hiroki Keaveney, and we discussed the lineage and story of Reiki. How we can be sensitive and aware when it comes to spiritual appropriation of healing work, how being transgender guides their spiritual path, and the importance of the ancestors and oral histories in the healing process.

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 0:35

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

Candice Wu 0:55

Welcome back, everyone. It’s great to have you. Before we jump into the episode with Hiroki, I’d like to say a special shout out to all my clients that are out there. I want to thank you all because part of the work that we do together, the investment that you put in, also supports me and being able to do this work with the podcast, to be able to offer more interviews and healing experientials is all made possible by the income support that I get from working with people one on one, as well as people in relationships, whether that’s a couple or a polyamorous relationship. I really appreciate you so much, all of you out there and you give me inspiration for more podcasts as well. If you want to learn more about my one on one work or couples and relationship work with people, feel free to go to my website at Candicewu.com.

Candice Wu 1:50

And now let’s jump into the episode.

Candice Wu 1:55

Hiroki Keaveney is someone that I just felt charmed by right from the beginning. I’ve really enjoyed speaking with him and exploring ideas about how transgender identity, race-ethnicity, all come into play in healing work, and in this episode, you’ll get a taste of that.

Candice Wu 2:14

Hiroki is a fourth-generation Japanese-American and certified Reiki Master and their mixed-race background as East Asian and Irish, informs the work that they do.

Candice Wu 2:26

Hiroki is the founder of Dragonfly: Intergenerational Healing Services, which is based on community and familial love. Their work is inspired and rooted in a decade of community organizing and building with queer and trans people of color on the west coast.

Candice Wu 2:42

What I learned early on was that Hiroki believes that the healing work we do is influenced by our ancestors and has an intergenerational ripple effect on future generations. So you can see why they and I got along very quickly because we had a lot to talk about with healing through the ancestry. So without further ado, let’s jump into the episode.

Candice Wu 3:06

I’m so happy to have Hiroki Keaveney here today. Thank you so much for joining us, Hiroki.

Hiroki Keaveney 3:11

Thank you for having me.

Candice Wu 3:13

I’m excited for our conversation. I have no idea where it’s going to go today, but first, I would love to hear from you and give you the space to share who you are and what you do.

Hiroki Keaveney 3:26

Thank you. Yeah, I feel like every time I answer that question, it changes a little because I think who I am changes often. But I guess right now, I would say that my name’s Hiroki and that I’m genderqueer, and I’m Japanese, I’m Irish, I really care about history, and I really care about healing, and something I really hope I can do with my life is like, somehow combine both those passions, and the practice I offer is called Dragonfly: Intergenerational Healing Services, and within that practice, I try to combine both.

Hiroki Keaveney 4:06

Yeah, one of the things I like to do with clients, regardless of the healing modality is: How does you in the present and your healing process, impact past generations and future generations? And so that’s something that a lot of healers have done with me, and that I try to do with my clients, really try to get people to kind of like, reflect, not only on like, why do I have this like, relationship pattern that I’m not happy with? Like, well how does that connect to your grandparents like? Or, how does that connect to your community or your community’s trauma, like history with imperialism or whatever? Like, what does codependency look like?

Hiroki Keaveney 4:47

You know, what I mean, like, how these systems are part of larger systems of oppression, or their symptoms of larger things going on, and so that could be my background in Sociology too, was like, a lot about, like, just studying systems. But yeah, I hope that makes sense. So I like combining energy healing like Reiki, or like card readings, like Taro, or natal chart readings, meditation, whatever it is. I like supporting clients in those ways because they’ve really supported me and they’re what I’m familiar with.

Candice Wu 5:19

That’s lovely. It sounded like you support people in connecting with their histories. But also, you were saying to the future, into future generations, how do you work with that?

Hiroki Keaveney 5:32

I love having a long view of history, and that’s something I’ve learned from elders in different community spaces about like, the work we’re doing now will impact generations to come, and I think sometimes it can be really discouraging or feel really overwhelming, everything going on, like, politically right now. But the more I understand history, and like, where we’ve come from, it, like, contextualizes what’s going on, and so understanding that what we do in the present will impact future generations, whether it’s like, political engagement, or whether it’s your own, like, healing, which I think is like a form of political engagement, because I feel like everything’s interconnected. So like, the healing you do, will impact future generations, whether you decide to have children, whether you decide to be in community spaces, like, how your sort of legacy would impact.

Hiroki Keaveney 6:29

I’ll just speak from personal experience, sometimes it’s hard to leave the house, looking the way I do like being gender nonconforming, people staring at me all the time. I think like, knowing that 10 years from now, they, them, pronouns, and gender nonconformity stuff, hopefully, we’ll be more socially acceptable or less, like, people will be more familiar with the terms at least, like, I think about the trans movement, and how within the last five years, like, mainstream media knows the word transgender, which is like, huge.

Hiroki Keaveney 7:04

So I, you know, I think like, 50 years from now, hopefully, like, when I’m super old. I can sort of look back and like, see how things were and how things are. And like, be like, okay, like, even though I feel uncomfortable, like a lot of the times, like going out in public, and like, you know, I always have headphones in so I can’t hear like street harassment, or if it happens, like, you know, like, knowing that these actions I take now in the present, I’m hoping, me being myself will encourage other people to be themselves and have some sort of like, ripple effect.

Candice Wu 7:42

Absolutely. I’m getting this picture of you, being who you are, out in the world, no matter what is coming towards you, is trying your best to be yourself, and that does have an effect outwardly, and that’s your hope is that down the line, that really has a change effect.

Hiroki Keaveney 8:06

Yeah, I hope.

Candice Wu 8:11

Yeah.

Hiroki Keaveney 8:12

It’s not, I don’t do what I do, like this, because I was like, I want to change the world. That’s not even why I like, dress, the way I dress. I do what I do, because it makes me feel the most comfortable in my body. Yeah, so that’s why I do what I do. But if it has some sort of like, political impact, or like, social impact, I feel grateful, and I think learning about history, I said, my background is in Sociology, it’s also an ethnic study too. I think to learn about community organizing, and just social movements in general, among communities of color in the United States. I feel like, it helps me self-reflect more about my gender identity. Yeah, and like the long term impacts.

Candice Wu 8:58

Well, I was thinking about how your racial and ethnic background has been very important to you, in your life, and in who you are, in what you do with people, and how you’re fourth-generation Japanese-American, and you’re also Irish, would you like to share a little bit about how this influences you, and how you see that.

Hiroki Keaveney 9:24

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like so much of like, my coming out is like queer, and like, later, as trans, like that process was so much influenced by being a person of color.

Hiroki Keaveney 9:36

I grew up in the Midwest and Ohio, and a bit, sort of drive to like, leave the Midwest was actually not even queer stuff because I was still like, just grew up so religious. So, I just didn’t know a lot. I knew I was different, but I didn’t really have language for it. But I knew racially I was different, and so I really wanted to learn about anything Asian, like, specifically Asia, like not Asian American, but Asian, and so I was looking at programs outside of the Midwest, and I loved visiting the West Coast, I loved it.

Hiroki Keaveney 10:17

And so, there was a program in Seattle, I was doing Asian studies, and I took a class called the Asian American experience, and it was the first time I really, like, I had a professor who was also biracial, like Asian-American, and it was just like an opening of so many doors that I didn’t realize that I needed, or that would be healing.

Hiroki Keaveney 10:42

So that sort of like, drive towards, like, understanding racial and economic justice led me to organizing, which so many queer and trans people do. So it was coming out as queer and later as trans really was in these, like, racial justice communities, and then the mixed-race stuff came later, I feel like, I always knew I was mixed, and always talked about it, and I got lucky in Seattle, that a lot of Japanese-American organizing, most people were mixed-race since like, I never felt out of place.

Hiroki Keaveney 11:21

I think, as I kept doing community work, I started to feel out of place, the more I moved around, because it became less mixed-race, and it became more monoracial, and so I just started seeing how my experiences were different, and so I would say about, when I was 24, is when I started doing more mixed-race stuff, like trying to understand, what does it mean to be a multiracial person? And how does that connect to my healing? Like, what does that even mean? You know, feeling like you don’t fully fit in anywhere you go, and then it really wasn’t until the Trump collection that I started trying to do like a white ancestor healing work. So a lot of my 20s was about like, my Asian ancestors, and like, healing around being Asian-American in the US, and now in the present, I am trying to do both, like, healing both sides, and feels like, coming into my queerness and transness was through communities of color, and then the whole mixed-race stuff, and now white ancestral work. It came a little later.

Candice Wu 11:21

So when you were saying the Asian-American experience gave you an opening?

Hiroki Keaveney 12:38

Yeah.

Candice Wu 12:39

Yeah. What did you learn about that about yourself?

Hiroki Keaveney 12:43

Oh, my. Yeah, absolutely. I think like, the first time I really had to talk about being Asian-American, to my peers, was when I was in fourth grade, we were learning about World War Two, and I share that my family was part of the internment, and I remember the whole class, like, gasped and like everyone was staring at me, and like, I was just like, what’s going on? And I remember like, later, in middle school, we would watch these, like more, it was called the morning announcements or whatever, and it was like this history channel, and I think it was my social studies class, my history class, that day was specifically about the internment, and I was like, I wanted to watch it. But my whole class was so loud, everyone’s talking, no one’s watching it, and the teacher was like, if everyone keeps talking, we’re turning off the TV, and I was like, I remember being like, guy shut up. Like, I want to watch this, and of course, no one listened to me, and everyone keeps talking, and he turned off the TV, and I remember being like, damn it. Like, there was this piece of me that always wanted to learn about what does it mean to be Asian-American, but it just like, wasn’t going to happen in Ohio, or maybe it would have happened in Ohio, but maybe it would have been in the college setting.

Hiroki Keaveney 14:05

You know, it just, it wasn’t going to happen, in my school system, and so I think like taking that class that was specifically devoted to Asian-American experiences.

Hiroki Keaveney 14:18

So, Dr. Wong, she started with Chinese-American history, went into Japanese-American and then went into Filipino-American, and it was because of that class, that I started volunteering at the Filipino-American National Historical Society. It was like, we had to do community work as a requirement for this class, and FANHS that’s like the shortened version of the Filipino-American National Historical Society.

Hiroki Keaveney 14:47

Working at FANHS with Uncle Fred and Auntie Dorothy, I feel like, I still take the lessons that they taught me so much of what I believe in and how I even practice energy healing. I think about the Cordova, and the work they do, they did for uncle Fred, he passed away.

Hiroki Keaveney 15:06

Basically, they started this organization devoted to Filipino-American history like, archive, that was the first time I’ve been in archives, where people just document their history. For some time I was around oral histories, and they really encouraged me to learn about my heritage. Like, they feel like uncle Fred was the first person to be like, learn your Japanese-American history, learn your Asian-American history, like, I remember that was the first thing he ever told me was learn your Asian-American history, and I was like, Okay, and that led me to Japanese-American work. That’s why that class was so special is, not only like in the classroom, but out of the classroom, like that internship at FANHS and then like, even after the class was over, I would still go, try to go at least once a month to visit uncle and aunty, and just like, talk to them about their experiences, learn from them. That’s how it changed my life, it was mainly my relationship with Uncle Fred and Auntie Dorothy Cordova.

Candice Wu 16:07

Wow, that sounds really powerful. I’m curious, what’s one of the life lessons you still take with you?

Hiroki Keaveney 16:15

I don’t know, I feel like so much of that class was a blur, but in a good way. Something that really moves me it was something that Auntie Dorothy said once and why she preserved like, Filipina-American history, and she said, she and Uncle Fred, like, learned their stories, because she’s like, I wanted to have self-worth. And I think when your stories are never recorded, or when the TV’s turned off, because all your essentially white classmates aren’t interested in learning about you.

Hiroki Keaveney 16:47

I remember learning Asian-American history in that class, and like, finally, feeling like I had a place at the table. You know what I mean, and I think that was probably one of the most important life lessons was like, learn your heritage, understand how you fit into this larger fabric of society, and like for me, it just gave me this huge sense of self-worth and that I was an American because I think the internment one of the big like, woundings that happened was this belief that you’re not an American, and that’s really complicated too because like, you know, we are settlers, if you’re not Native American, you know, you’re like a settler, or you’re West African and forced to be here without your consent, and so I think, you know, even me saying like, I am an American, I think it’s really complicated, and I also never felt like an American growing up. So I think taking that Asian-American class was really transformative, because I was like, Oh, I am an American. I am part of American history.

Candice Wu 17:54

I’m just thinking about where to go from here because I’m interested in your family story. I’m not sure if you want to share it today or not?

Hiroki Keaveney 18:02

Yeah, I can share a little.

Candice Wu 18:03

Yeah, maybe just a bit of what you found is so restorative for your sense of worthiness?

Hiroki Keaveney 18:12

I think like, growing up hating being Asian or Japanese-American, like, really internalizing racism, like, looking in the mirror and being like, Whoa, like, I don’t like who I see, like, wishing, you know, I had blond hair, wishing I had blue eyes, like all the things are being taught to like my European features, but not me Asian ones. I think I kind of like went the pendulum opposite.

Hiroki Keaveney 18:41

When I was in college. I was like, Oh, my God, like, I can’t even think about my white side, I like, must think about why I need to love myself, and so I think by the time I was like, learning my family stories was after college, so I had moved to California to be near my grandparents, and honestly, was like a really disillusioning process, because I learned just how screwed up my family is, and it’s not because like, you’re Asian-American, it’s like, just my family story was so like that. And what do I say, it’s like, I feel like there were like toxic patterns in my family that were only amplified because of larger white supremacy.

Hiroki Keaveney 19:27

So it wasn’t like, we were like, perfect, and then the war came, it was like, we were messed up, and then the war came, and so I think restorative about my family was I think I had put my family on this pedestal, and my community on this pedestal and being like, Oh my god, we’re so resilient. You know, we are, like, we fucking are but we’re not perfect.

Hiroki Keaveney 19:35

And I, you know, I know, we’ve talked in the past about like, the importance of not putting, you know, groups or people or even an individual like a mentor figure, spiritual leader, the dangers of putting people or communities on pedestals that having all the answers, and so I think what was restorative about learning my family history, was like, I learned the good, the bad, and the ugly, and the beautiful, and I think once I could sort of like see the complexity of my family legacy.

Hiroki Keaveney 20:31

It helped me understand me and my complexities, and so, I think like, even though I first it was a disillusioning process, it also was restorative because I feel like that’s a reality for most people is like, you probably, there’s a reason why a lot of families have secrets, like, they’re not great, and so like, once you learn the secrets, and once you learn why the silences are there, then the healing can happen. Because I feel like it’s more painful to not know, and then once you know, even if it’s painful, you can finally work through it, because it has a name.

Candice Wu 21:14

What I’m grappling with is the spiritual experience versus the human experience, and not that they’re different, and not that they’re not connected, or one, but seeing it from multiple levels, seeing the experience from multiple levels. So my own experience of being Chinese-American, and I experienced a lot of being silent when I was younger and I internalize that as just me, that I was shy, and that I didn’t have anything to say, and I felt I was stupid. I didn’t really have anything to contribute. I had no idea that a large deal of my experience probably related to me being Chinese American, in an area that was almost all white, and as I started to learn more about that, I also learned in my ancestry why there was so much silence.

Hiroki Keaveney 22:13

Yeah.

Candice Wu 22:14

Just to touch in on it, just looking at Chinese culture with like, Tiananmen Square, when people spoke up for something they believed in they got killed, and women got their own silencing and agreed to their own silencing of different ways that also included the body like being, having their feet wrapped and being smaller, and so I lived this experience. But then I also felt like the same themes that I was experiencing so painfully, and that avenue, related to themes of my soul, just being small, the experience of being small or being unworthy, and feeling like I just deserve to be silent, or that I deserve to not exist at all, and I was working through some past life experiences of, and I don’t really know that these are the truth. But there’s a resonance that feels like, at some point, I was a healer, and go figure right? And it was very more like witchcraft and taboo, and I feel like I was also a shaman, and I feel like, I was a variety of different healers that, in that time wasn’t so respected, and if I was myself with all of that, then violence would be there.

Hiroki Keaveney 23:38

Yeah.

Candice Wu 23:39

That’s just my feeling and the reason I’m speaking to it is that it helped me clear out some of that, so that it’s not imprinted in my daily experience now and in who I am and what I choose to do now, and I’m curious for you, if you’ve had that sort of experience where or how you’ve thought about your spiritual self, or the spiritual perspective with all of who you’ve learned you are in your oral history, and in your ethnic history.

Hiroki Keaveney 24:11

Yeah, you know, I’ve only done one past life thing. It was like a past life regression therapy session. So it was funny, because, I couldn’t see anything yet, I felt things.

Candice Wu 24:27

Yeah.

Hiroki Keaveney 24:27

It felt like, one of my friends who did it, they could see everything, and they even felt their own death, and all these things, and for me, while I didn’t see a life, I saw kind of look a movie picture, if that makes sense. It was like, I saw all these different things I have experienced in my present life like when you have that Deja Vu feeling when you’re somewhere and you’re like, oh, like, this is really familiar, and it’s like, I wonder how we connected to this. It was interesting, like, my past life lesson actually was to focus on the present and to know that I’m loved. Those are my two lessons.

Candice Wu 25:12

Yeah, and I don’t necessarily mean like, what about past life for you, but just how do you look from your spiritual perspective? What people and you experience in your, like, rich ethnic heritage? And what, I don’t know, maybe it’s too vague of a question.

Hiroki Keaveney 25:36

No, it’s not. I was just thinking.

Candice Wu 25:40

Yeah.

Hiroki Keaveney 25:42

I think like, whenever I do work with like, people who are shamans or people who are energy workers, healers, all of that, when they talk to spirits were like, watch over me. There’s kind of like a common theme. It’s like, that might have like, third eye stuff going on, and that like, I’m super like, connected to ancestors and that they are present, and then the other thing that people say is like, weird throat stuff, like I can’t speak, which is funny, because like, we’re both talking about silences on a podcast, but right, that’s my own stuff that I’m working on is like being able to name things.

Hiroki Keaveney 26:26

And then the other thing they tell me is that my root is really like my sense of home and community wall, like, I do have like, strong community roots and senses of like, inner connectedness, like my sense of home is always kind of influx, and I think it has a lot to do with how much I’ve moved.

Hiroki Keaveney 26:48

So I think spiritually, how that all relates is like, how does that all really, I feel like ancestor work for me, spirit stuff is always my relationship with different ancestors, that’s like, my spirituality, and how I connect with them whether it’s through like, reading a book, or like a conversation, or learning a family story from a relative, it like feeds a part of me, that’s not physical, if that makes sense, and I feel like, for me, that’s spiritual.

Hiroki Keaveney 27:24

I think when I was a kid growing up very, like religious. Sometimes I would sit in the church, like after the church service was over, and everyone went to get donuts, because that’s all churches, right? So I’m like sitting in the church alone, because everyone’s like getting donuts and coffee, and I remember just feeling at peace because it wasn’t about the service. Because the service was the same every Sunday. Well, the sermon was different. But it was about feeling connected to love, feeling connected to unconditional love. And as I got older and came out twice, I had to reimagine what that would look like, because many religious institutions aren’t supportive of queer trans people, and that ended up looking like my relationship with my ancestors, and that feels good. It feels good to like, feel unconditional love, and that was what my past life regression session was about; that I am loved, and that I’m lovable, and so, now I do feel loved. I do, and I hope to sort of carry that with me wherever I end up.

Candice Wu 28:44

It’s beautiful.

Hiroki Keaveney 28:45

Yeah, thanks for listening and for asking. Yeah.

Candice Wu 28:50

Absolutely.

Candice Wu 28:52

So one of the topics that you and I have been interested in is cultural appropriation and the appropriation of healing modalities that I take part in, and that the world does, right. Would you share your definition of cultural appropriation and specifically in healing work?

Hiroki Keaveney 29:21

Sure, I guess my personal definition would be like, an unwillingness to learn, like an unwillingness to learn from the communities who’ve created these practices. Yeah, I feel like that’s the core of cultural appropriation is this, like, I’m gonna take something and not going to take the time to get to know you.

Hiroki Keaveney 29:49

I feel like, that’s cultural appropriation for me anyway.

Candice Wu 29:54

For me, also to add to that, just like, taking a practice, and taking it out of its context, as well, like the room, maybe where, and why it’s important, and making it important for different reasons.

Hiroki Keaveney 30:08

Yeah, I like that.

Hiroki Keaveney 30:10

Yeah, it’s so hard to talk about, because there are so many types of appropriation, of cultural appropriation. So, I wanted to say it in a really simple way, because it’s so huge that taking and like you said, taking out of context too, without a willingness to learn. I feel like it’s appropriation. It’s like a form of disrespect, and I think it’s a form of spiritual disrespect too.

Hiroki Keaveney 30:38

Someone was talking about, you know, going to a museum in Britain. I think that museum is, I forget the name, but basically, it houses all these different spiritual artifacts that were taken from communities, that Britain colonized from countries. You know, and this person was talking about how emotional experience that was, when they left, just how it felt and how they cried, and because a lot of the artifacts were taken, because they were valuable to the cultures, and so usually they held spirits. These were objects used in ceremonies and rituals. So they have the spiritual energy to them as well. Yeah, it was like you took a spirit.

Hiroki Keaveney 31:37

So I think, when that person, you know, when they shared that story with me it, for some reason that I’m just thinking about it right now, and we’re talking about spiritual appropriation, like, it’s that, like, I’m going to take this from you, without any thought of how it’s going to impact you, and how, I’m not going to learn about you either. This is for me.

Candice Wu 32:01

That feels so painful.

Hiroki Keaveney 32:02

Yeah.

Candice Wu 32:03

It feels painful and at the same time, I feel removed from, I’m not sure the experiences that I feel removed from the immediacy of that taking.

Hiroki Keaveney 32:17

Yeah.

Candice Wu 32:17

That I don’t even know then what I’m taking, and sometimes I have the feeling like, if I see spiritual objects, or what I’m perceiving as someone using certain spiritual objects, like a drum, let’s say, I actually feel a bit cautious. Like, I don’t really know what I should be doing with that, and, or is it even my place?

Hiroki Keaveney 32:44

Yeah.

Candice Wu 32:45

So, I just kind of wait and observe and see, or try to learn from somebody if I’m that curious. But what’s your experience with that? And I think a lot of people have those that worry, that sort of overwhelm that there’s such a richness to everything, but how do we even take it all in? And how do we even know if we’re being disrespectful?

Hiroki Keaveney 33:11

Yeah, caution is like always, that’s a great word to you. Cautiously, observing, I love that.

Hiroki Keaveney 33:22

Absolutely. Because I think, we’re trying to heal parts of ourselves that were longing for healing. But how do you even go about doing that when we live with basically these histories of colonialism and slavery and genocide in this world, you know? And I’m just talking about the United States, like, I’m not even talking about globally, the things that have happened, I think it’s for me, it’s a case by case. I get to know this healer, I build trust and relationship, and I see how they practice, and if that lands okay, and then I also try to, like, educate myself, and I’m like, I practice Reiki, but I feel like I’m still trying to grapple with Reiki history and learn it and understand it, and like, what does it mean to be a fourth-generation, mixed-race, Japanese-American practicing the spiritual practice, from my people? And what does that even mean? And what does that look like? And the ways Reiki has been appropriated in so many ways that to the point that when I talked to people from Japan who grew up there, they’re like, Oh, I thought that was a Western thing, you know? So even mean that I practice this practice that even Japanese people are like, wait, what, that’s a Japanese thing?

Candice Wu 34:42

Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about the story of that, just so people listening can understand from where you’re speaking about this? Because I think that’s fascinating, what you’re saying that Japanese people aren’t necessarily always aware that Reiki comes from Japan.

Hiroki Keaveney 35:01

Yeah, that made me really upset when I kept like, running into that. I was like, wait, what? Or like talking to Japanese Americans? Were like, Oh, that’s a white people saying like, what? Like? Oh no. So it was like the Japanese Americans, Japanese, like, I was just like, damn it, like, you know, you finally think you’ve learned a healing tradition of your people, and then your people are like, that’s not even ours. They’re like, What? It’s a mess, and why it’s a mess, largely has to do with the internment, and US occupation in Japan after the war.

Hiroki Keaveney 35:37

So basically, in like, I want to say the mid–1800s. I need to like, say this is me like, not knowing facts fully. But basically, in the mid to late 1800s, there was a Reiki revival among some spiritual communities in Japan, and basically, Reiki, like any forms of energy healing, like, I feel like all cultures have some type of like, Reiki, like some type of energy healing practice.

Hiroki Keaveney 36:05

We even talked before, like Jesus even laid hands on people to heal. So I think Reiki is just specifically a Japanese type of energy healing that many cultures practice in their own specific ways, and so basically, there was a revival of it, in a way that, like, in Japan, the symbols that you learn in Western Reiki aren’t as important, and there was this belief that like, we all have Reiki in us. That’s what happened with this one person, he was like, I see, I need to do my fact checks, like, I need to learn his name. But basically, there was someone named Usui who like, he learned about these practices from this, like, he heard about this person, and then he went even further and tried to adapted t to Western cultures.

Hiroki Keaveney 36:52

So in the 1920s, he came to Hawaii, he came to the United States and basically shared these two practices, shared Reiki. But in the 1920s, and, you know, the early 1900s, there were tensions between the US and Japan that just blew up, this may be the wrong word, that’s probably really insensitive. It just like, it went everywhere during the war.

Hiroki Keaveney 37:20

So during the war, back to Japan, and he basically was forced to use Reiki in the Imperial Army to like, heal soldiers, and so Reiki started being used for war, basically.

Hiroki Keaveney 37:36

So that’s like a weird thing to wrap my head around when it was like very disillusioning. Because I like, hate imperialism, and I like, hate the Japanese Empire, and I was just like, Whoa, like using it on soldiers who are like, just how the comfort women and just like, I was like “nooo”, —

Candice Wu 37:55

Wait, they used it on soldiers for what purpose?

Hiroki Keaveney 38:00

To heal them, so they could keep fighting.

Candice Wu 38:02

Like injuries or spiritually or…

Hiroki Keaveney 38:07

Both, probably, because Reiki was believed it could help heal, like, physical injuries, like quicker, and obviously, you would like, care for a physical way too. But Reiki helps the process.

Hiroki Keaveney 38:20

Some people use it nowadays to like, help people who have cancer, obviously, you would still go in for physical treatments, but you would also have the spiritual element that’s supposed to help the physical healing process.

Hiroki Keaveney 38:33

And so Reiki became associated with war, and so by the time World War Two ended, everything Japanese-related in the United States is very taboo. So Reiki went away pretty quickly in the US, and in Japan, because it was associated with the war during US occupation, it was outlawed, it was just banned.

Candice Wu 38:55

It’s so interesting how parts get forgotten and the focus goes like, to me, it feels like, it almost was forgotten, that it was this daily healing practice or innate practice, and it became part of the war because there’s so much focus on the war, I would imagine.

Hiroki Keaveney 39:13

Yeah.

Candice Wu 39:14

Then it became so paired up, and now it’s being banned.

Hiroki Keaveney 39:19

Because it’s powerful, and I think, I mean, it just shows you how any sort of spiritual practice can be used in any form. It’s like it could be used for good, it could be used for evil. So that was disillusioning too, because like for me, I do not respect like, imperialism in any form, whether it’s people of color or white people just like, don’t fucking colonized people like what, like for me, when I was learning about Reiki being used for the Japanese Empire for the war, I was like, whoa.

Candice Wu 39:57

I remember you saying before to me that, when you, specifically have looked at your history, and your ancestry, and your culture, that there are things that are really positive and strengthening for you, but also that you grapple with, and that’s part of the process for you, and so that, it’s just a really nice example of how you’ve grappled with Reiki as a practice that you use, as well as the history of it in Japanese culture.

Hiroki Keaveney 40:27

It’s strange being part of a heritage that brutalized, like, different people throughout Asia and the Pacific Islands. So there’s that but then also to be a part of a culture that was silenced and imprisoned in the United States. Yeah, it’s something I really grapple with, honestly, and it’s weird because my Irish side, my family’s actually more recently immigrated from Ireland, than from Japan, which is also, you know, unusual for people who are half-white half-Asians, their white family’s been here for many generations and the Asian side is like more recent.

Hiroki Keaveney 41:05

So on that side, I grapple with British imperialism in Ireland, and then how colonialism impacted my Irish heritage, Irish side, and then how Irish people in the US, at first, were treated pretty terribly and weren’t always seated, how do I say, how the Irish became white eventually, and benefit from white supremacy, and just the level of like, anti-black racism and like, you know, the Irish, like, lead anti-Chinese movements, like, it’s weird, having two different cultures, either colonized or colonizer outside of the US, and then when they come to the US how varying levels of privilege and oppression play out based on racial hierarchies and the United States.

Hiroki Keaveney 42:01

I know like, when I told the story of Reiki, it gets all over the place. So I’ll just quickly, sum up… but basically the war, it outlawed Reiki to the point that people don’t even consider it, Japanese. So it wasn’t until the 70s, 80s, sort of this like, spiritual movements of many white people trying to learn about people of color, basically, people of color practices and this one person from Hawaii, feel like, have learned Reiki from Usui student in the 19, I want to say the 30s, and then she like, obviously didn’t practice in Hawaii. But during all these spiritual sort of, I don’t want to say awakening, so that is not the right word. But just like this drive of white people wanting to learn about Native American and Asian practices. You know, she came to the mainland, and she started teaching people and charging them a lot of money to learn these practices, and so learning that too, is also like, oh, like another layer of like, you basically like, hustle these white people for their money, which like, at first I was like laughing about, I was like, Oh my god, I love that. But then the other part was like, oh, man, you are capitalizing on a spiritual track is like, weird, and so I’m pretty sure her last name was Takata. I can’t remember anyone’s first name.

Hiroki Keaveney 43:26

So this is my own stuff of needing to learn more about history, and I don’t speak as an expert, I just speak as myself and what I’ve learned over the years, but basically, she came to the US and based on our experiences of living in the US, and like, she even made it more adaptable for Westerners to learn Reiki more so than assume we did, like, she refined it in a way, and it was because of her that we know Reiki now because she brought it to the mainland.

Hiroki Keaveney 44:02

So after she passed away, because she had like, told her 20 something students like, you need to charge people several thousand dollars to learn Reiki or it’s not real Reiki, basically, and probably the one Japanese American in this, like, group of people was like, oh, we need to make it more affordable, and her name was Iris, she’s like, no, like, we need to make Reiki accessible and affordable for people. So she started attuning people at a much lower rate and has of these different iterations, and like, fine-tunings of Reiki but, and really, I want to say because of Japanese American women of color, that we still have Reiki in the US in whatever form it is.

Hiroki Keaveney 44:51

Basically the last thing I’ll say about what I’ve learned about history, and when I was talking with a friend, who grew up in Japan, when we’re talking about Reiki, she’s like, Oh, what’s that? And then she’s like, oh, yeah, well, Reiki, the word in Japan. It means someone who is connected to the spirit world. So someone who has a lot of Reiki, like, will be sensitive to spirits, and she talks about her friend when they’re at the cemetery. The friends like, I got to get out of here, and she’s like, yeah, that friend has a lot of Reiki, we would say she has Reiki because she’s connected to the spirit world.

Hiroki Keaveney 45:24

So even though the practice isn’t considered by many people, whether in Japan or Japanese Americans in the United States, like, considered Japanese or how it’s been appropriated to the point that it is not considered Japanese anymore. It’s cool that in Japan, it still has this sort of spiritual connotation of what is Reiki? And how for me, I mean, that was really special, because Reiki was very much an opening for connecting more with my ancestors, and so I love that it was about the spirit world, because when I offer Reiki and when I receive Reiki, I feel very connected to spirits.

Hiroki Keaveney 46:04

Yeah, thanks for letting me share the story.

Candice Wu 46:06

Absolutely. I’m glad you told it. Because I had no idea before you shared that with me that that was the way that Reiki, the story of Reiki has transformed and taken place. So it’s really fascinating, and that kind of leads back to that thought I was having about a lot of times we don’t even know we are appropriating spiritually from another culture.

Hiroki Keaveney 46:30

Yeah.

Candice Wu 46:31

It’s like the history of that has just shown how removed and more removed it’s gotten from the roots, and so much that the people at the roots forgot.

Hiroki Keaveney 46:42

I came over people’s names. Yeah, I was like, I can’t remember anyone’s name.

Candice Wu 46:49

Well, yeah, I think that just also shows how complex it is, and how much information there is to know, and to be kind to ourselves, because we can’t always know it all. But I think what you said about having the willingness to learn what’s behind a practice, or where it comes from is the most important aspect because we don’t know everything, and we, how could we —

Hiroki Keaveney 47:17

I definitely don’t, and also to be honest, like, part of my hesitation, like I can see their first names in my mind, and I think the woman’s name is Kawaio, I’m not even sure, and then the man’s name I think is Mikao. But part of my hesitation in saying it out loud is because I don’t know Japanese, and I have this shame around not being able to pronounce my people’s names. I feel like, even to this day, even though I’ve come a long way, and I try not to internalize shame when people say, “why don’t you know Japanese”, and I’m like, the fourth generation, my family was doing internment. I started to like, make the conversation so good, and then like, go to those like, sad face. But I wanted to be real about —

Candice Wu 47:43

I don’t experience that, yeah, I think it’s really important to be real, and yeah, bring these aspects out because that’s part of, that sounds like a very interesting part of why it’s hard to remember the names or that, it’s to take them in or to save them.

Hiroki Keaveney 48:20

I’m scared I’ll pronounce them wrong. I don’t know, unfortunately, that part of my heritage, because so much of internment was about stopping language learning, and so much of becoming an American is talk about is you’re supposed to become “American” and not know, the language of your people.

Candice Wu 48:42

Right. It’s a painful reality.

Hiroki Keaveney 48:46

Yeah, and that was the second part about appropriation, I wanted to share about, you know. I hope that when we’re all like learning from each other about like, what is appropriation and like, how can you know, I practice things in a way that is respectful. I think like, having an understanding that everyone sort of comes to the table differently. Like, sometimes when someone is learning a practice, from their own heritage. How to work through so many levels of unworthiness and shame, that I would mess up Reiki or that. But even now, like, I’m telling the Reiki story rough, you know, like, I feel like there’s this added sort of burden of when something has been taken away and appropriated that when you’re relearning it and reclaiming it, and you’re from it, there’s this added layer of trauma, you have to work through in order to heal through.

Hiroki Keaveney 49:47

So I think that’s a big piece around appropriation is how another group of people, if they take it from you, and you’re trying to relearn it, usually, how you have to work through so much shame, in order to relearn who you are, because I, you know, before our conversation, I like really wanted to sort of like, what is appropriation? And not just like the whole theoretical sort of in your head? What is appropriation? How does it feel in your body? What does it feel like? Like, it’s not just about the intellectual, it’s like about, how it leaves people in their bodies at the end of the day.

Candice Wu 50:32

Yeah, I think that’s essential. I love that you brought it back to that.

Hiroki Keaveney 50:37

Reiki helped me get into my body. So —

Candice Wu 50:40

I think it’s such a beautiful piece you’re sharing here, it’s so nuanced that the very practice that you wanted to learn, that is rooted in your culture, you needed to work through some of the shame and the trauma that your people perhaps experienced, and the people who carried Reiki through —

Hiroki Keaveney 50:59

Right.

Candice Wu 51:00

– experienced, perhaps, and the shame was still there. It was a way it sounds like, a way back then that was helpful, because people were getting hurt and killed for being connected with it, and connected with Japanese culture, and being Japanese, and so what we can do when we appropriate, I think, is to turn away from the pain that is also associated with it, or that came with the story, and what you’ve done is you’ve looked right at it.

Candice Wu 51:33

And I also want to bring the other side of the coin, and I know I was saying when I’m approaching spiritual objects who are practices, I was using the word caution and observation. I think observation is good for me. But I think caution might be necessary at times, if there’s a vibe from someone else of like, you need to really respect this, then I might feel more cautious, right.

Candice Wu 51:56

But I also want to bring in the feel of a joyous exploration, that learning about other people’s spirituality or their ritual, or ceremony, if you’re invited in and welcome. But that can be such a joyous place that I approached.

Hiroki Keaveney 52:17

I love that. Yeah.

Candice Wu 52:18

And not caution, you know, it doesn’t have to be like, oh, I’m going to tiptoe and step on eggshells, but it can be like, Okay, let me see. Like, I’m willing to learn and open.

Hiroki Keaveney 52:30

Yeah, I feel like that happens when I meet people who are like, very much rooted in their practice, and like, now, what’s up? Do you know what I mean? Like, I feel like, getting to learn from people who are like, really, in their power with whatever practice and lineage they’re a part of.

Hiroki Keaveney 52:51

Honestly, I’m like, Loki tearing up, like thinking about it. Like, I feel like when I see or experience someone who is rooted in their heritage, yeah, thank you for sharing that part too, because I think that’s the piece that’s really important is when people invite you and welcome you, and like that, and you’re in a respectful way, like, learning from one another, like, connecting spiritually those people is just, it’s so, it feeds me in a way that the physical world doesn’t, and it’s so essential for like, my humanity and like, feeling interconnected with people like, I’m really glad you brought that up, because it is so beautiful. Like, when you see someone who’s in their power in their ancestors, like just doing it.

Candice Wu 53:46

Right. It is — if I’m getting you, right — like from the field, that you’re saying, and I’m going to be using my own words here, but it feels like a radiance can shine from someone who’s really in their roots and honoring all those who came before them.

Hiroki Keaveney 54:03

Yeah.

Candice Wu 54:03

And who all those whose histories informed what they are able to offer as well, and the gifts that they hold and carry through, and that there’s so much power to honoring everyone behind that picture, and not just the one person or the practice itself, but who’s contributed that there’s an ancient radiance that gets passed along.

Hiroki Keaveney 54:33

You can feel it and you see it. You just see it on someone’s face.

Candice Wu 54:37

Absolutely. Yeah. So we’re getting close to the end. Is there anything else? I know there’s a lot to share, but I wonder for today —

Hiroki Keaveney 54:48

You know, it’s funny, the activity that I learned in Asian American Studies class, my Professor of that class, Dr. Wong taught me, take a quarter, and like, put it on one of your eyes, and then he like, close the other eye, and she was like: when money is the focus of your life this is what you see, and she’s like, slowly move that coin away from your eye. Yeah, and she’s like, see how the whole world opens up when you’re less focused on that coin?

Hiroki Keaveney 55:19

Yeah, and it was like, wow, like, I just love that, and so, you know, when I shared Dr. Wong’s story with Uncle Fred at FAHNS, a Filipino society, he was like, he shared something with me that I’m just remembering now as I’m sharing the quarter story. He said, stare at one of the corners of the room. I’m like, Okay, so I’m like, staring, and he was like, now take a step back. Okay, and so he’s like, keep walking backward, and all okay, what he’s like, see how there are walls and a ceiling now, see how there are other corners in the room. He’s like, when you’re focused, because I think I was like talking about growing up super conservative Catholic, he was a very progressive Catholic, and so it was really healing being mentored by him for that reason, and so basically, he was like, when you think of your ways are the only ways, it’s like you only see a corner of the room, and he’s like, when you like, expand, you just see that there’s like this whole room, it’s not just the corner, and that you need all of the corners to make a room work.

Hiroki Keaveney 56:28

Essentially, he was just saying, we’re all interconnected, and all of our beliefs are part of like, the human experience, basically. Yeah, I’m literally just remembering that metaphor now, and it’s funny, because another teacher, her name is Dr. Bridges, she was the one to teach me Sociology class I was in at school, and she said that, like, she was talking about truth with small T’s instead of a big T and how all the small T, truth, are like ways people search for big T truth, in a sense, and yeah, I feel like all those three metaphors sort of, like, guided me, my sophomore year, when I was sort of like, seeking something that wasn’t what I grew up with.

Hiroki Keaveney 57:15

And what was funny is by the end of the school year, I came out as gay. And it like, I feel like being trans and being queer, is so spiritual for me, because it’s like, really knowing myself, and I think we always talk about meditation, it’s always felt like, you know, get into stillness, the quietness, know, yourself, and like, being queer, and like, my gender and my sexual, like, it’s knowing myself, and like, being really clear on it, even when society is telling me that it’s not normal, being like, this is who I am, and it’s spiritual for me. And —

Candice Wu 57:56

Yeah.

Hiroki Keaveney 57:57

Yeah, the last thing I’ll say is, I know we’re out time. So for me, like what I love doing with clients is like, you know, how can I know myself better? How can I be more connected to my heritage, future generations, all that good stuff, and I think like, one thing that’s helped me over the years of like, recording my family stories, like, if you really want to know your family story, like, either cook with your family, because a lot of things will come out when you’re making food, or have someone else interview them.

Hiroki Keaveney 58:33

I know that sounds weird. Like, I got lucky that my family recorded a lot of their stories on this like an archival digital website called densho.org. It’s like they collect all these Japanese American stories on internment, oftentimes, your family will only share certain things because they want to protect you. If you really want to know the true details, if your family’s open to it, maybe they need to talk to one of your friends or like a third party or whatever, and like, record it, because they will share things that they will not share with you. Because they want to protect you from the ugly reality of what they live. If they live through, like ugly realities. You know what I mean?

Candice Wu 59:13

That is so interesting.

Hiroki Keaveney 59:15

Yeah. That is something that I definitely learned that was like, Whoa, like, my family really opened up about their traumas to these strangers interested in their story, because they never told me that because I’m the grandbaby. Why would they tell me that, they want to protect me! So that’s something I learned. If you’re interested in your family story, sometimes it’s better to have someone else interview, though, is a big thing.

Candice Wu 59:39

Yeah, and that sort of witness from the outside can bring an extra witness.

Hiroki Keaveney 59:45

Yes.

Candice Wu 59:45

That opens up different parts of the story.

Hiroki Keaveney 59:48

Yes.

Candice Wu 59:48

But that’s really such a good point. An interesting point about having someone else interview your family members.

Hiroki Keaveney 59:55

Yeah.

Candice Wu 59:56

If silence was the way we survived, then we would pass down silence.

Candice Wu 1:00:01

When I do Family Constellations work, one on one, and in a group, it’s often that because there’s an element of unfamiliarity with the people around you, that gives way for something different, and sometimes more, and so it’s, I can see the power of that, and also want to integrate what I got from you about the corners of the room, that metaphor.

Candice Wu 1:00:31

It brings me back around to the idea that we have our view, and we have learned this one way of life. But in order to see a full picture, we need other people’s pictures as well to put all the pieces together. We just can’t possibly see it all. Or, at least I don’t know that experience of seeing it all. It’s helping us whenever we bring in another person in the fold, in our awareness, if we can see another person, we can see another part of that larger truth. So thanks for sharing that picture.

Hiroki Keaveney 1:01:11

Oh, my God. Yeah, that, I mean, those three metaphors about money and truth and interconnectedness of all people like, yeah, that was such a transformative year of my life.

Candice Wu 1:01:24

Yeah.

Hiroki Keaveney 1:01:24

I was so grateful for all of those mentors. I wouldn’t be me without them.

Candice Wu 1:01:29

It’s beautiful. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing today, Hiroki, I learned so much.

Hiroki Keaveney 1:01:37

Thank you for sharing everything you said. I was worried. I was like, am I talking to us, because, you know, it’s like the guests just talk. But I was like, to be more conversation. So no, I’m, yeah, thank you for sharing everything you shared.

Candice Wu 1:01:50

When I experience people talking for a broader picture of people, it doesn’t fit well with me, because I think, when you say, I’m just sharing my story and my experience in my part of the picture, that it feels like, that’s the way I’m most comfortable doing it too, because I can’t really speak for anyone else, and it’s not my place, and it really feels grounding when you speak from that place.

Hiroki Keaveney 1:02:21

It does, and I mean, so much of colonialism and all of that is speaking for other people, writing about other people, not listening to them. So it’s like when we speak from ourselves.

Candice Wu 1:02:37

Yeah, it’s like such a relief to just be and to share, and to not have someone like, interrupt or speak for you. It’s, yeah, it’s you.

Hiroki Keaveney 1:02:49

Thank you.

Candice Wu 1:02:50

Thank you. Okay, until next time.

Hiroki Keaveney 1:02:53

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

Candice Wu 1:02:57

Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode with Hiroki and me. I appreciate you being out there and tuning in. I learned a lot from this conversation, and that’s one of the best things about doing podcasts with people is that it’s not exactly just an interview. It’s more so a conversation that can create an alchemy of new ideas and inspiration, a new awareness for both me and the person that’s on the show. So I hope that you’re getting something out of it as well.

Candice Wu 1:03:27

What I love about Hiroki is how understanding compassionate as well as honoring they are. If you want to get in touch with Hiroki or learn about their services, you can find them at dragonflyintergenerationalhealing.com.

Candice Wu 1:03:43

If these episodes inspire you and you want more, check it out at CandiceWu.com/podcast or go to my Patreon site at CandiceWu.com/patreon, to become a supporter.

Candice Wu 1:03:54

I’d love to give you my updates in my bi-monthly newsletter. So if you’d like to hear from me or connect up with the Embody Community on Facebook, go to CandiceWu.com/embody.

Candice Wu 1:04:05

Take care and see you all next time on the Embody Podcast.