Candice Wu 0:00
In this episode is a conversation about the Amy Cooper and Christian Cooper video, racism and how it's been playing out in the U.S right now, the way my body expressed reactions and perceptions towards black people, and an experiential for you to open your own body-based exploration around people who are different from you.

Candice Wu 0:24
The Embody Podcast accompanies you on your journey of remembering and embodying your true nature, integration, and alignment with your vibrational clarity, self-love, and living a life of beauty and wholeness. It's a menu of transformative healing tools, experientials, meditations, and practices from a blend of Family Constellations, Somatic Therapies, and Holistic and Spiritual practices, sprinkled with vulnerable conversations with people who have the courage to be themselves, {alive now} Episodes with updates on my personal process and Reverie Episodes that are Spiritual succulents that honor, reveal, hug, shake or stir you into Love. I'm your host, Candice Wu, integrative and intuitive healing facilitator, and artist.

Candice Wu 1:24
Hi, everyone, welcome back.

Candice Wu 1:27
Today's episode is a deepening into the conversation around race wounds and hidden race wounds, racism, and how to work with this in the body.

Candice Wu 1:41
I talked a little bit about this already, including my personal experiences with some race wounds, both on the side of being the person holding a belief about someone that ended up hurting them and from the other side of feeling wounded or hurt.

Candice Wu 2:01
In that conversation was this opener, an invitation to look and to be with exactly what you feel. And to go into the deeper layers of what you experience and what you put upon others because of your own fears or because of looking good and doing what people call Performative Allyship, being an ally to people, like black people, perhaps, and just doing it for a pat on the back, and ignoring the deeper stuff that lives in your body that plays itself out.

Candice Wu 2:42
So that conversation started in that episode. You can find it at [CandiceWu.com/racewounds](https://CandiceWu.com/racewounds).

Candice Wu 2:50
It's your body that holds reactions and unconscious sentiments towards others that contribute to racism. And no matter who you are. If you're black, brown, white, yellow, every color or tone skin tone in between, going deeper into the dynamics of what's going on systemically means looking at your own body's reactions, along with any other actions that your heart feels called to take, if that's protesting, if that's speaking up, if that's donating money to organizations that are supporting black people or those that you feel you want to support. I suggest holding space for what's held in your own body and digesting it.

Candice Wu 3:41
If you don't involve your own body in healing racism or in your anti-racism efforts, it has a risk. Your support of Black Lives Matter or any other race movement, it has a risk of being only performative and not going deep enough or perpetuating the same underlying dynamics that you intend to shift, that you intend to be different. But because it's held in the unconscious of the body, it stays the same.

Candice Wu 4:12
There is an effect when we hold stuff that's living in our bodies. When you heal your body's experience and the unconscious lived experience, the world around literally changes. So I encourage you to build your own ability to respond to your own reactions and to respond in the world instead of reacting. This is your response-ability. And this is inner freedom. Inner freedom supports freedom for all.

Candice Wu 4:44
I promised I'd talk a little bit about Amy Cooper and Christian Cooper. And I think that's a great opening for this experiential that I want to offer today.

Candice Wu 4:55
So if you haven't seen the video with Amy Cooper and Christian Cooper, it might be interesting to look at that.

Candice Wu 5:04
What I witnessed was a white woman, Amy, calling the police on a black man who asked her to put a leash on her dog in New York City, in the park, and he was calm and anyway, I'm not going to describe all of it, you can watch the short clip. But what I want to highlight today, first is how extremely calm the black man was “Christian”. I'm amazed even I don't know if I would be able to handle it like that. And then secondly, how Amy, I kind of want to say just the white woman because this can apply to anybody, and it's really not about her personally. It can apply to me. Her reaction, I see, is because of trauma that maybe she doesn't know about. Her body flared up so much. And I can't assume what she felt. But I can see that her body was escalating and activated and her nervous system seemed to go haywire. She was yelling in a sort of uncontrolled way. And she weaponized calling the police against this man who — where it was totally not called for in that situation.

Candice Wu 6:41
And that's similar to what's happening with police officers. They're scared and they have a knee jerk reaction, or there's something else going on in this dynamic of their own lives and it's being taken out on a certain group of people, black people in particular, but people of other races, experiences too.

Candice Wu 7:08
So I don't want to exclude but I do want to be sensitive because right now is a strong time for listening and beholding space for black folks experience the space that hasn't been had and truly been acknowledging enough. And we would know that because it wouldn't exist if the society could hold enough space to honor respect and stand behind all people, especially black people.

Candice Wu 7:58
So this woman had this trauma response and this is not to excuse what she did. It is just to say that I think that's going on for a lot of people in the world and in the United States, that even with and now I'm not speaking about this woman, but in general, even with the best of intentions, we can still be holding these hidden pieces of ourselves that will have a threat response, a trauma response, given an experience with someone of another race in a particular circumstance, where that might not be proportionate to what's actually happening.

Candice Wu 8:51
And because this has happened for so long and reiterated itself, repeated itself over and over and over in many ways, in this country of the United States, and perhaps in other countries, it has become a place where we're on autopilot, we are numb and these protests are waking many people up.

Candice Wu 9:19
So in this experiential today, I invite you to get curious about what it is that happens in your body and to be honest with yourself, to see and feel what you feel, and to have the courage to allow whatever comes up to be part of your process, in looking at your own racism. Or, if you want to say it in different terms, the ways that your unconscious wounds and belief sets then you may keep down, can live out.

Candice Wu 10:07
The important idea here is Performative Allyship. It's when you ally with people that won't support, won't to stand by them and you do it for a pat on the back and not in a whole and embodied way looking deeper. And that's really dangerous because it's a way to avoid looking at the deeper stuff that we all have.

Candice Wu 10:46
I don't know maybe the Dalai Lama doesn't have it, I don't know. But I want to venture to say we all have something and you can listen to my episode about what I experienced. And those were just two examples out of many I've looked at in my life. Many places where I have seen myself have different responses in my body towards people who look different than me or who are different or people of a different race. And that means something, that does something when I don't acknowledge it.

Candice Wu 11:23
So it's important to know what's there and just own it, and be honest with yourself to do so, and to look at how that affects your interactions. It's not a time to put blame on yourself, but to be gentle, so that you can look. It's not a time to shame yourself, even though you may feel shame.

Candice Wu 11:54
So I'm talking to everyone, including myself. I'm not just talking to White people, how we feel in our bodies. When we see a person of another race, or of another, whatever, we perceive them as different. We have a reaction in our bodies. It may be one of welcoming and warmth. So see if that's there for you. It may be, I can't look, it's hard to look, it may be fear, it may be sadness because some memory gets triggered up from your ancestry through your body or your past life, wherever it came from.

Candice Wu 12:43
All of that affects how we interact with each other and what we ignore, what we look at, who gets seen, who doesn't? What part of you get seen and doesn't?

Candice Wu 13:04
And so here is an opening to deepen in your own personal responsibility, response-ability, the ability to respond, the ability to look and hold and be with your own reactions and respond.

Candice Wu 13:26
So if you would like to please jump into this experience with me, and you can have a pillow or some sort of object to support this process. I'm going to invite you to move around your space using that pillow or book or some sort of prop, even a piece of paper and you can write on it. And I'll let you know what this object or paper is going to represent in just a moment.

Candice Wu 14:00
If you are not in a space where you can do this physically, or you don't have enough privacy, say you're in transit or something, you can imagine this in your mind. I don't recommend doing this while you're driving though, so please find a comfortable, safe space.

Candice Wu 14:22
When I first began looking at my biases, reactions, perceptions, and beliefs around black people or about them, I was surprised to notice that I couldn't really look at them. I was afraid of their power actually. I had both an idealized view that they were like, all-powerful grounded beings who could dance, kind of like drum up their warriors' selves and dance it out in this way that I wish I could be. And that I might be like screamed at, that was the sense I got, that I might be screamed at by someone who is black, and I wouldn't be able to handle it.

Candice Wu 15:24
Well, the perception was that they were erratic or perhaps angry, uncontrollable and that scared me. The perceptions that I placed upon black people were more about me than anything else. They were about my childhood wounding where I could get screamed at and that was terrifying and some of that had not been digested and metabolized or integrated. They were about ancestral trauma, wounding from culture to culture through my ancestry that it was intergenerational, the history of black people and Chinese people against each other.

Candice Wu 16:10
They were also about the fear of my own power and fear of others being full in their power. That part of your own power is the freedom to stand up and speak your truth and be that warrior self. And if I could have it, that was scary, what that would be for me, and if others could have it, then my own reactions to that and what would I do with that, that was scary.

Candice Wu 16:40
So when we leave these perceptions, but not only perceptions, our body's responses, our wounding, our untouched wounds, stuck in time, it's like cobwebs and bones in your closet or in your kitchen and they are rotting, and they're creating this undertone. And that is the underlying foundation of systemic racism and violence. That is what can bubble up and fuel our interactions with people of different races or of difference. And we may not be aware of that.

Candice Wu 17:24
And when I did get more courage in myself to look and to feel that I really wanted to digest it, so that I didn't have that experience, and I wasn't putting that on black people around me and I did.

Candice Wu 17:49
I felt like a whole shift because when I would imagine looking at a black person or when I was actually in front of a black person, and I'm not saying all Black people. I'm saying ones that I don't know, or certain ones that maybe they dressed differently than White people, or Asian people around me. Or, they had a certain kind of attitude that I wasn't used to and I don't mean a bad attitude. I mean, like, they're sassy in a certain way. I couldn't look at them. I would – like – slink away or turn away. And I didn't even notice that response until I did.

Candice Wu 18:45
And so the experiential that I want to offer today is one of that kind of practice, to get to know if you haven't already, some of those reactions that you may have and if you already know your reactions, it's a chance to test it out, comb through it and see what's here for you today.

Candice Wu 19:12
So what I'd invite you to do is take a pillow, or some sort of object to use as a prop. And with that, have a space that you can move about, that's private and quiet. If you're doing this on public transit, or in a place you don't have that much space, you could try visualizing this in your mind, but I would not do this while driving or operating any machinery.

Candice Wu 19:58
We're going to invite this object, this prop to represent someone of a race that you are wanting to look at your own reactions within your own body. It could be a Black person, it could be another — a Black person of another color, if you are Black, could be White person, could be Chinese, whoever. Just choose one for now, and you can do this with any other kind of person or a person with difference, like a different ability, size, accent or language, different sexuality. This can be applied to anything.

Candice Wu 21:03
So as you designate this prop to represent this person, this kind of person, and obviously, it's like a generalized thing, although different people you know may come to mind. Place the objects somewhere in your space, just intuitively wherever it feels right. And allow yourself to stand in a space interacting with this person.

Candice Wu 21:29
Imagine this person. Notice where you stand and how close or far away and allow your body to move around until you find a place where your body goes, where you land, where what happens is just happening. And open your curiosities, so that you can just allow whatever it is that's here to be here, to be discovered, to be revealed, and maybe even to surprise yourself in the safety of your own experience.

Candice Wu 22:15
There's no judgment or shame about whatever you may experience and you may even experience your own shame or judgment, and that's okay too.

Candice Wu 22:38
Now, feel and begin to witness what emotions and sensations you have inside your body as you're aware of this person. Become aware of where your eyes are looking, where they can look, or where they cannot.

Candice Wu 23:06
Can you see this person? And what happens in your body when you do look?

Candice Wu 23:19
And be open to anything, maybe it's warmth, maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's fear or some tension or a tightening of your shoulder, towards your neck and ear. Look for the subtleties and just be curious as you explore inward and downward.

Candice Wu 23:53
And whatever distance you're at, notice if you go closer, just a bit or farther just a bit, what begins to happen there inside your own body.

Candice Wu 24:19
And if you allow yourself to recognize or acknowledge that this person has a right to be, and to exist, what happens in you?

Candice Wu 24:46
And experiment with saying to them, I see you. And if it's true or not, can you see them?

Candice Wu 24:55
Can you see that they have a family or that they came from somewhere in terms of having an ancestry of people behind them?

Candice Wu 25:14
Can you see that they may have desires or dreams and honor that, what happens in you?

Candice Wu 25:30
Can you see if they have wounds or that they have wounds? Are you open to seeing that?

Candice Wu 25:49
And now just looking at your own experience, your own body even more, notice whatever happens in your body. Are there any thoughts about this person that is beginning to reveal itself?

Candice Wu 26:10
Any fears? Assumptions?

Candice Wu 26:23
And these assumptions don't have to even be “bad”. They might just be any assumption that you don't know has an unintended consequence. For example, thinking an Asian person is smart. That's an assumption and that can have an undesired effect. Even if you think it's a good thing to think about someone.

Candice Wu 27:03
Notice what there is here.

Candice Wu 27:07
Again in your body, all the way down to your toes.

Candice Wu 27:18
And whatever there is here to notice or witness, just allow yourself a few more moments here to do so and experiment with this dynamic as much or as little as you want moving closer, farther, standing next to, standing behind, seeing their ancestry, letting them see you.

Candice Wu 27:56
Noticing any part of you that has dislike or disgust or any other uncomfortable feeling. And let yourself investigate that by just being with it.

Candice Wu 28:20
And you might take longer here or take note of pieces of what you experience, thoughts that may have come up. Recognize that not everything is going to come up here. Because this stuff generally happens when you interact with life itself. And there are different ways that circumstances can draw out unknown perceptions or things that were just hidden or that you've hidden from yourself.

Candice Wu 28:56
So this is just an opening.

Candice Wu 29:02
When you're ready, take that prop and release it back to what it is. The pillow or the object that it is. And check in with yourself again.

Candice Wu 29:14
Notice how you're feeling in your body. Anything that's happening for you.

Candice Wu 29:26
Thank yourself for having the time and making the time and space, for having the courage to look.

Candice Wu 29:36
And feel free to try this again with any other kind of person that is different from you. Just checking to see what there is to know, what there can be revealed to you.

Candice Wu 29:52
And if you have someone that's willing to do it with you in person, someone who is different from you, if it's a safe experience that you can set up for the two of you that's agreed upon, that might be really interesting.

Candice Wu 30:11
And know that there are lots of spaces of Systemic Constellations that hold space for race wounds and race dynamics, wounds of our ancestry.

Candice Wu 30:26
In this experiential, we just looked at the body's reactions, the body's experience, when in the presence of someone who's different from you.

Candice Wu 30:41
In upcoming episodes, I want to look at parts of us that hold certain wounds, certain perceptions that may open up to our own personal wounding, or the wounding of our ancestry that we've inherited or have been replaying.

Candice Wu 31:02
And I want to talk about some Spiritual perspectives that zoom out farther, that are not unrelated to what we're talking about, but from a different vantage point to look at, from the level of creation. How have we created this and what it is that we're creating so we can take a deeper responsibility? A farther back perspective of responsibility and come out of any of our own victimization where we feel like someone else is to blame or to fault or something. Not everyone will be ready for that kind of risk, possibility, or presence.

Candice Wu 32:03
Some people at different times need acknowledgment of other people because that's where the wound happened. But I want to offer these coming up, so stay tuned if you're interested in that.

Candice Wu 32:19
Feel free to reach out to me and share your own experience with this experiential or pieces of this work that you're interested in. My email is [embody@candicewu.com](https://CandiceWu.com/connect). Feel free to leave a comment if you're seeing this on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube.

Candice Wu 32:36
Thank you so much, and please be gentle with yourself. Support your body if you need it. And again, thank yourself for practicing this today.

Candice Wu 32:51
I'll leave you with just a little music to transition and allow your body to come back into the present moment and to whatever else your day holds.

Candice Wu 33:03
Thanks so much for joining me. I'll see you next time.

Candice Wu 0:00
This is an a{Life} Now episode about polarity, and coming into oneness and neutrality, dropping into a deeper space of love, and creating a new way of being, a new Earth, a new Life, creating new dynamics.

Candice Wu 0:18
And in this episode, I share about a feeling of worthlessness and wanting to disappear that I had, that surprised me and gave me some unexpected healing and wisdom.

Candice Wu 0:34
The embody podcast accompanies you on your journey of remembering and embodying your true nature, integration, and alignment with your vibrational clarity, self-love, and living a Life of Beauty and wholeness. It's a menu of transformative healing tools, experientials, meditations, and practices from a blend of Family Constellations, Somatic Therapies, and Holistic and Spiritual practices, sprinkled with vulnerable conversations with people who have the courage to be themselves, {alive now} Episodes with updates on my personal process and reverie Episodes that are “spiritual succulents” that honor, reveal, hug, shake or stir you into Love. I'm your host, Candice Wu, integrative and intuitive healing facilitator, and artist.

Candice Wu 1:36
Something that I've always been interested in is the opposite side of things, the polarity. The two sides of one coin, and especially where there are things that we overvalue in our society or we stigmatize. I've been interested in finding some sort of neutrality, where I can feel for and understand both sides and feel the bridge in between that links them. And it's with that.

Candice Wu 2:15
The other day, I was noticing this feeling of, I feel worthless. I am worthless. I am nothing, and I want to dissolve into nothing. I want to disappear. And for most people and even by my own perspective, I have built up my worthiness and thought that it was important to feel into self-worth rather than worthlessness and to heal worthlessness. And that, I guess, I wouldn't say it was a bad thing. It's just that it's not a feeling that resonates with my being that I feel worthless.

Candice Wu 2:59
So if it's there, either ignore it or if it's not ignorable, not ignore it, but just, it doesn't have power. But if it does have power, then look at it and heal it.

Candice Wu 3:12
And so here it came the other day and it came with a bit of sadness. So, kind of familiar to maybe other past feelings of worthlessness or unworthiness that I felt, but it had a different quality and it was here now, so I followed it. And they followed it, more words came and it continued on from I want to disappear. I want to dissolve into nothing. I want to be nothing.

Candice Wu 3:44
I asked myself a question that sometimes helps me. If I could dissolve into nothing, if I could feel worthless and nothing and disappear, what would it give me?

Candice Wu 4:00
When the knowing came, I just teared up and it felt like such a relief. And it was that I would feel peace. It surprised me, it surprised my mind at least… like I would feel peace if I felt worthless. I would feel peace if I could disappear. But those were actually the keywords, “disappear”.

Candice Wu 4:24
What it really meant to be, and it came through those words, even though it may not make total logical sense, but it kind of does, in that there are parts of me that have felt like I owed others something, that I exist for others. And I feel responsible for others, their well being or for making people happy.

Candice Wu 4:53
At this time of my life, it's only fragments of me like, little pieces of debris that feel that way. And, here it was, in this different format unexpected and surprising format, where, if I could disappear then it would feel amazing and peaceful because I wouldn't have to answer to anyone else. I wouldn't have to feel responsible for anyone else. I could be in my own world and be me and just be responsible for me and live my life for me, that I exist for me.

Candice Wu 5:37
It really brought me to clean up my dynamics with others, another level, where I trust in my own freedom and autonomy and I am that. I claim that. I take up that space as well as see the sovereignty of others. And, they're through responsibility for themselves and deeper knowing of their autonomy and wholeness and strength, and capacity and their journey, their path whatever they choose to do. And however one chooses to experience and be as a whole in their existence.

Candice Wu 6:27
So, I was shedding a layer of peace, of feeling like I owed others something in order to be okay. And if I, from that place of feeling that way, if I gave to others in a certain way, and these are little small things now, like returning text messages, maybe when I am not feeling totally compelled to in my being but feel like I should or feel guilty, emails and such.

Candice Wu 6:30
I'm really quite good at it now to just do it when I feel, I'm connected with it and that is for me to do in that moment I feel aligned and I feel happy or delighted to do it or feel purposeful for myself. It's truly a feeling of being in harmony with myself, my desires, and living fully in my being for my existence and for others because that is true harmony. If I can be fully in my existence, and others can too, everyone has that choice too.

Candice Wu 7:42
The process of getting there is a result of that choice or the journey with that choice can be something with that, I'm deeply free and so are others. And from that place, then I can connect with the cleaner intention, more of me, present and congruent with a clear intention of connection. Not connecting with others because I feel like I owe them something or I'm responsible for them and dependent, codependent in that way, on the dynamic, so it's breaking free of that dynamic and healing it and letting myself be from a freer place that is delighted to connect with people and interconnected, when I want to be and how much I want to be, as well as knowing that unconsciously and energetically, there's still a collective connection.

Candice Wu 8:50
So the feeling of the words and feeling of worthlessness going to wanting to disappear, going to peace, freedom, and harmony was so powerful for me and I loved that spin on it, of worthlessness. And it reminded me of how much I enjoy looking at polarities, and how going on one side or the other of a polarity is actually coming from the same energy.

Candice Wu 9:24
So the need to feel worthy and the need to feel, in my case, this kind of worthlessness that I am not indispensable, that I'm not the sole provider for certain people or like, so needed by people gives me a lot of freedom. But that I can be there for other people if I want to. And both sides of that spectrum come from not a place that I'd like to criticize or put as lesser or lower or worse, but more so a developmental, appropriate place of needing to develop that knowing and that side of myself, needing to know what it feels like to be worthy, needing to know what it feels like to be worthless, and therefore being able to come into the center of neutrality, that I'm not either of those things with that. I'm neither of those things and everything both. With that, I'm the awareness that feels these experiences. And to move beyond it naturally is to have felt both sides and understand them in my body. And then it's not a thing anymore. And that's where it's becoming. It's really nice to feel more in myself. More here for myself and coming towards connection from a more easeful, pure, and clear place of desire when that's there. And when it's not there, that's just the right thing.

Candice Wu 11:26
So what this leaves me with for all of you and for myself is the — just awareness that we are none of the things that we are trying to say we are and we are those things at the same time, you know, we are enough… inherently… and there's a deeper enoughness and worth of our existence that just is and that goes back to just almost all Spiritual sources that are deep knowing that we are, we exist, and therefore have value just because we exist. And to just feel that in my bones and my knowing, and to look at the places that maybe I hold and attach myself to, as part of the polarity, the duality, and to allow those places to gently come to the oneness, where it holds both, the both and the nothing.

Candice Wu 12:40
So some of these words, you know, I explain this in a kind of complicated way. I'm sure I could have explained this more simply. But I hope that you're receiving the energy of this, no matter what, and that if you've listened to it, that there's something in it for you, perhaps, or some piece of it that just connects with you. And if not, feel free to just leave it.

Candice Wu 13:07
I wanted to share this piece with you. It relates to a lot of the things I have talked about on the podcast like touching into the shadow side of empathy in that episode. You can find it at [CandiceWu.com/empathy](https://CandiceWu.com/empathy). Just looking at ways in which empathy goes awry, turns awry, and the door just opened.

Candice Wu 13:34
And just looking at the other side of the things that we assume our values and we assume, should be a certain way. And the way we look at society as a collective and what's happening, even social justice, it's coming in as a disguised form of the same energy of the opposition, sometimes. And there's nothing wrong with that, it's just swinging from one side to the other and reliving the same energy or energetic dynamic and relational dynamic as well.

Candice Wu 14:20
And if that's the case in your life, are there ways that you want to come into the neutral space?

Candice Wu 14:28
A neutral space doesn't mean you don't take any action or do anything that helps people or that brings awareness or does some good, does some — and I question the word “good”, but does something that you want to create that feels good. It just means being neutral just means that you get to do it from a place of freedom and from a place that doesn't create the same effect from the opposite end.

Candice Wu 15:02
When we look at racism and anti-racism, that's often that kind of dynamic, where racism is on one polarity and anti-racism is on the other and it's coming from the same place of hurt. And it can often create the same hurt… or another level of hurt. And if you take the content out of it and look at the pattern, all dynamic of the energy or the things that are happening that it creates, produces something similar, another opposition.

Candice Wu 15:50
I know it's very pronounced with our president in the United States, Trump, and in other countries as well. There's a lot of opposition and polarity and divisiveness and we're really seeing opposition very prominently in our experiences as humans here.

Candice Wu 16:14
I don't necessarily like some of the things that I see. And where can I find a neutral space where I can bring loving, that isn't of the same pattern I see, is what I like to go for. And then, of course, there are just so many million ways that our dynamics are hidden to even ourselves and maybe to others too. Ways we feel like we're doing something good and it covertly creates the same wound or hurt.

Candice Wu 16:52
And so I just love this conversation.

Candice Wu 16:55
Let this be a conversation with you if it's a place of awareness that you want to build in yourself. If it's something you want to create, and as many people are saying, now we are creating a new Earth or we're creating a new vision. We're stepping into a new way of being. However you say that or put words to it, I think finding the neutral space where both sides of polarity can be held and dissolve into the oneness and the nothingness, the wholeness, the totality, the drop into a larger expanse of awareness, where that's more connected with source. When that can come through, we have the ability to really create something different.

Candice Wu 17:55
So that's all that wants to come through today. Thanks for listening.

Candice Wu 17:59
Sending my love out there to all of you and the energy of clarity, the light to be able to see yourself, see the world from a different standpoint that's not attached to polarity.

Candice Wu 18:14
Hope you're all doing okay and if you want to hear more from the {alive now} series, check that out at [CandiceWu.com/podcast](https://CandiceWu.com/podcast) and you can click on {alive now} to see the thread of all the episodes that were alive and present for me in the moment of recording and very raw, as well as other podcasts by me and guests and the experiential and meditations that you can tune into as well. And if specifically, you want the meditations and experientials for healing or grounding, loving yourself, you can find it at [CandiceWu.com/meditations](https://CandiceWu.com/meditations).

Candice Wu 18:54
Thanks for listening to the Embody Podcast to this {alive now} episode.

Candice Wu 19:01
See you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

You’re tuning into the continuation of The Deep Mystery of Life, where I talk about my past life experience unfolding, and the magic of this mystery, of the experience of life. In this episode, I talked about meeting a human from the past life as well as a horse and the land, the land that helped me in this experience. It’s unbelievable on some levels, and that belief is everything. It’s magical.

Candice Wu 0:42

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

Candice Wu 1:17

I have a very special announcement that on the website, you can search through all of the healing experientials and meditations and find exactly what you’re looking for. You can search any topic or keyword, and see what there is on the podcast that offers you all the guided healing audios that you can follow along and use in your own practice. So, what I mean is, if this is your first time tuning in, that some of the episodes have healing experiences that guide you through a specific thing that will support your healing or embodiment or loving yourself, and so, you can find that whole database at CandiceWu.com/meditations, and look for specific ones. If there are meditations out there that you want to see, and aren’t there, please feel free to drop me an email and share that with me at CandiceWu.com/connect.

Candice Wu 2:19

Also, the transcripts for the podcasts are out. Almost all of the podcasts are transcribed at this point, almost all of them, and the ones that are not will be very soon. This is just great. If you are looking for something specific that you heard on the podcast and you wanted to pull a quote or something or you wanted to read that section or if you rather digest material through visual form where you can move at your pace and skin, you can find all the transcripts at each podcast link, and all those podcasts ar at CandiceWu.com/podcast.

Candice Wu 2:58

So, with all of this be behind the scenes action, which has been quite a bit, the podcast is supported by people like you who listen and contribute. So, if you have felt touched or inspired or want to give back in some way to the creative support of this podcast, of all that it offers the world and the community, the healing topics and ideas, the guests, the experientials, the meditations, all that wouldn’t really be possible without people supporting it and feeding it with some nourishing good vibes as well as money that supports all the editing and production, and love if you were interested in supporting or want to just check it out at my website at CandiceWu.com/support. All of the contributing options used to be on Patreon and now that’s all shifted to my website, so, every penny that is possible can go towards the podcast.

Candice Wu 4:00

Hello, and welcome back. I woke up really dizzy this morning, and in the past, I might have like in a way, way, way past I might have just chalk it up to something weird I ate or something going on. I can’t quite explain or maybe worried that I have some medical condition, but luckily, with Peter Levine’s research and studies and training in somatic experiencing, it really guided me to see that as a dissociation experience, as an experience where my nervous system was overwhelmed and helped myself ground and come down from that, and back into my body. I could see clearer and it’s not completely gone at the moment, but I do feel much more embodied and resourced.

Candice Wu 5:00

So, with that, I wonder how you’re all doing. As you tune in today, just take a moment to check in with your body and feel what’s going on inside. I like to ask myself the question, how much of me is here right now? How much am I here, right now? How available Am I? It doesn’t matter how much, it just helps you to gauge where you’re at, so that you can either support yourself in grounding or you can acknowledge where you’re at and be okay with that or see what’s needed, and what if this became your practice daily, like before you approach your work or before you connect with a friend or loved one or a family member or a client if you have clients. How much of me is available here?

Candice Wu 6:18

So, to give you a little update, I am in Granville, Ohio at Denison University, and I’m thrilled and just delighted to be a part of Molly Shanahan Mad Shak Choreography’s process in their development of their peace for the upcoming years. They’re working on a piece that is called EX/BODY, and it’s the expression of life and movement through trauma and through with trauma and in the investigation of movements that arise from traumatic experience. It was so excited to be invited into the process as a somatic healer and consultant to the group to support them in their creative process and their nervous systems, in having the capacity and the resilience, and the navigation of the process for each individual which is so personal, and group-related all at once.

Candice Wu 7:29

I couldn’t have even imagined a better position for me to be in, a role for me to be in that combines all the things, not all the things but many things I love — dance, collaboration, trauma work, sharing about trauma and working with people and experiences, and supporting self-expression and awareness. So, here’s a shout out to you, Molly Shanahan and all the dancers in Mad Shak choreography, I’m so happy to be here with you and I’m honored.

Candice Wu 8:04

And actually, this experience is part of what catalyzed what I want to talk about today in the unfolding of my past life. So, being here in Ohio, I decided to head out into nature and go camping by myself for about four days before this week, residency with the dance movement group, and I’m not sure when I would have done it otherwise, probably sometime soon, anyway, but I was so excited to go to Hocking Hills, Ohio, because my brother and my sister had gone there, and came back with just nourishment and of course beautiful photographs that I just couldn’t resist and wanted to see myself. So, it gave me the perfect chance to go camping, and just immerse myself. I had no idea what was going to unfold.

Candice Wu 9:08

So, if you’re new to the podcast or if this is your first time hearing about the specific past life story that I’ve been telling over the last maybe month, actually, I began telling this story awhile back, and I want to just tune you into the podcasts that I began telling this story so that if you do feel inspired to tune into those to get the full story, you can take a listen. So, I actually begin telling this story about my past life, about this specific past life because there are many in the episode CandiceWu.com/ep49, which is called Past Life Trauma: Unfolding Freedom.

Candice Wu 9:56

And in this episode, I talked about how tuning into our past lives and letting that reveal can unfold freedom for us in this life now as well as strengthen resource, and I begin talking about a past life in which I got on a horse and took off, and I got in trouble, and I died afterward. And I don’t remember I may have said that, at that time that I think I died while on the horse, but I do remember, perhaps at that time realizing that it wasn’t the horse that kills me or being on the horse, it had something to do with someone else or something else that hurt me or something that happened, and at that time, I remember asking my inner being, “Do I need to know the full story?” And the answer was no, it just wasn’t important. It was specifically to, at that time, important for me to know about being on a horse, and how horses had connected in my past life, but the rest wasn’t so essential at that time. So, you can find that episode at CandiceWu.com/ep49, and that’s about past life trauma.

Candice Wu 11:15

And the next episode where I talk about this past life thread is the episode about a month ago, and it’s called The Deep Mystery of Life, where a pain in my elbow allowed me to go deeper with myself and reveal this whole past life experience of me being a young girl shifting into rite of passage as a woman and feeling so big, in a sense, like big of my personality and fear, stubborn and having my own ways, and feeling like the women of the tribe wanted me to do this rite of passage, of course, our specific way, and I just didn’t want to, I wanted it my way, and it just was a battle in a way. And one night, I decided to go off by myself on my horse and build my own fire and do my own rite of passage, when I got attacked and raped by a white man.

Candice Wu 12:19

So, that whole podcast tells the story of what my connection with horses meant at that time, and how that’s related, my experience of feeling abandonment with father figures that was long before this life, but also manifested very strongly in this life that related to that past life. It was a bit of a confusion that got cleared up as well as my wound, and feeling of victimhood with white man in a specific, violent sort of way, and how that all tied in with my elbow and my uterus, and my feeling that something was taken away from me, which was part of my creative life force that seemed to have been directly attacked by white man.

Candice Wu 13:17

So, if you’re interested in hearing that you can tune into CandiceWu.com/deepmystery or CandiceWu.com/ep84. And the most recent episode, Episode 86, is The Shadow Side of Empathy: When Empathy Goes Awry. This episode has a main focus on the shadow side of empathy, but in the very beginning, I talked a little bit about the progression of where the knowing of my past life had taken me, and that is to come into my ferocity, and to know how to use a knife if I’m going to have to, because the whole past life experience that I described in Episode CandiceWu.com/ep84, with The Deep Mystery of Life, originated from a camping experience where I was out on the rustic side of camp and nobody else was there, and I just feared no one would be able to hear me if something happened.

Candice Wu 14:18

I was sleeping with a knife in my hands, and I would have no idea how to use a knife. If someone came and attacked me, I mean, just the most basic like grab and stab or whatever, but to someone who is trained or is very violent and aggressive, like I just probably wouldn’t stand a chance. So, the last episode, that was a solo episode, in Episode 86, I talked a bit about what I was doing at that time to strengthen myself, and to fine-tune some of these skills that my past life self was asking me to look at, including archery and staying connected with horses. So, you have those three episodes, Past Life Trauma, Episode 49, at CandiceWu.com/ep49, you’ll have the main episode, Deep Mystery of Life that tells the more of the fullness of the story at /ep84, and then you have this last one at CandiceWu.com/ep86.

Candice Wu 15:36

And now, this is part two of The Deep Mystery of Life, and I just, who would ever think that more of this past life would reveal itself, and yet, it has almost every single day, it’s like a bits and pieces, and then some days, some huge downloads of information come to me. And that primarily was due to being on the land. So, again, if I would have asked myself like 10 years ago or even five years ago, if this was real or believable, I would probably, hands down, say probably not. No, this is, maybe you just made this up so you feel better or I don’t know, some logic to describe this unfolding of events, but in my willingness to believe and to trust, I’ve opened up so much knowing and love, and parts of myself that I wouldn’t have known were there. Had I not just leaned in and suspended the disbelief that I had, more and more dots keep unfolding, and it gives me so much more fullness in myself.

Candice Wu 17:08

Things click and make sense about who I am or who I feel I am or the things that have been important to me or that I just noticed in my life, and why? Why do I notice certain things? And this story just captures that all, like this giant puzzle piece, just got put in place that has been missing for my whole life. Well, probably, just because I wasn’t listening, but I’m listening now. So, let’s jump in.

Candice Wu 17:43

So, in the thread of this story of this past life unfolding, I last spoke about wanting to take unarmed self-defense and sharp weapons, and archery, and I am in the process of doing all that. The first class I took with was unarmed self-defense, and I would rename it as unarmed self-defense offense because it’s so, it really taught me to step into my ability to be aggressive and violent, just so that I have that capability if I needed to.

Candice Wu 18:20

Somatic Experiencing has helped with that a lot. There are practices and ways that you can use play and animal noises, and growling, and the continuation of a fighting movement, a scratching, a kicking all of that has been really powerful to restore, the sense of protection and ability to protect myself and fight if I have to. And yet doing it that way, was like a slow-motion way, it provided the safety in my body to experience and navigate the feeling of it without just going into overwhelm and being dissociated from my body, and in the unarmed self-defense class, I found that doing it at like super-fast pace, the way that one would need to, if under attack, like doing a palm strike, you know, several times as fast as I could, to, you know, get someone to protect themselves, and so that I could run, that was a totally different experience.

Candice Wu 19:36

I’ve had this experience once before, but in this case, I think more of myself is present, and I have had a lot more of my trauma healed so that I can really utilize this experience for myself. And so, during the class, it was two hours long, about an hour and a half through I was like, “Oh my gosh, I just have to sit down I think I’m going to throw up.” But I really, I knew what it was, I wasn’t really going to throw up, although it is possible that I could have, but I was really aware that my body was having a whole trauma experience. It was that this movement and fullness in ferocity, fullness in like a fight mode was turning on some other parts of me that needed to fight in the past or that had gone numb and into overwhelm, and shut down and not fought. So, all of that was moving through my body.

Candice Wu 20:41

So, with a few minutes of being with the feeling, orienting and noticing my surroundings, talking with my teacher who was not particularly trauma-sensitive, but he also gave the space for me to do what I needed to do, with some self-touch, especially with my legs and moving my legs a little bit, I was able to feel that feeling of nausea pass, and it was ready again to move forward. So, that was just very potent, and I want to mention that because if you’re out there trying self-defense or certain experiences that allow your body to move in certain ways, even dance or karate or kickboxing, sports, lifting weights, that can bring up the implicit memory of the body that activates the nervous system into that remembrance of something incomplete or an experience where your body and nervous system was overwhelmed or traumatized, and so, to be really supportive of yourself, to know the tools of how you can ground or move through the experience.

Candice Wu 22:11

I mean, that can take years, but to always know you have the resource of looking around you and looking at things that feel safe or good to look at. That’s called orienting and somatic experiencing, and looking for pleasure that can help resource you. So, your resource can be inside your body or outside, and when it’s inside your body that might be looking for a place in your body that feels okay or neutral, feeling touch on your body.

Candice Wu 22:46

Okay, so after these experiences, I was at the stable with the horse that I’m usually with, Sunny, and I meet this woman who has a horse she’s about to sell named Cloud Walker, and I look at this horse, she’s a paint horse. So, she’s like white with black beautiful spots, kind of look like cow spots, and I didn’t think much of it at first, but then immediately, this friend of mine, she became friends of mine. I didn’t know her she was a perfect stranger that day. She said, “You can come and hang out with Cloud Walker and work with her or ride her anytime you want,” and I was just floored. How was this happening?

Candice Wu 23:38

And so, a couple of days later, I was walking around the stables again, all the horses are out in the pasture, but inside there are stalls and they each have their names on them. And I was looking for a halter and rope to find Cloud Walker, and I see her name tag on her stall and it says CW and I do this double take because those are my initials, CW, and that just, you know could just be a coincidence, but in that moment, I was like, what I often tune into names, and somehow sometimes, when names are familiar to me or my name, I pay attention.

Candice Wu 24:34

So, that day I went home with the question, do I know Cloud Walker? Is that a message to me? Do I already know her? Is she the horse from that past life? So, immediately, I went into this mode of — what has this horse been telling me? Where have I not been listening or “Okay, I’m listening now”. What do you want me to know? And I did that both with her, and when I was at home and tuning into her energy, so, tuning into her psychically, without putting too much pressure on her, but just opening. So, I flashed back in my mind to these moments where I was with her, when we were doing some groundwork, and what I was asking her to do was to walk in a certain direction, and to begin to tune into my communication with her, where if I shifted my energy, she would go faster or slow down.

Candice Wu 25:48

So, interestingly, she would do just fine with us going to my left in a circle, when I’d asked her to go to the right, was like, it was like she looked at me like, “Why asked me to do this, what are we doing? And then instead of going, she would get really close to me and put her face like head to head with me, and when we’d get this close, it would be just so peaceful. I loved it, and it was funny because I had this other agenda, I wanted to keep on doing this groundwork thing, and she was just like, No, I just want to be with you. I just want to be with you. That’s all, and then she would put her head down and be like, ”Well, I’ll also want to eat, I’m hungry.”

Candice Wu 26:48

And so, as I thought about what is this horse trying to tell me, is this, in fact, the horse from my past life? Without putting too much pressure on that question, I heard that message, I just want to be with you, and it felt like a really comfortable, peaceful, harmonious connection, that was instant. There was a lot of resonance between us, and I didn’t particularly feel that with other horses, but somehow it didn’t strike me or hit me hard in a way that I thought it might, if it were my soul horse from another life. So, I just didn’t recognize it, and as I felt into this whole, I want to be with you. I felt I wanted to be with her and I just started crying, and it was in that moment of recognition that we wanted to be together and that we had been together, we know each other, and it was beautiful, and I do feel she was an is a horse that I have known for hundred hundreds of years.

Candice Wu 28:02

So, if I was Native American, I feel that that was a life, that was at least two or 300 years ago, like somewhere in between that, and the resonance keeps coming to me that I was an Ojibwe, and I’ve just been learning more about that and what that means, and as this is all unfolding with Cloud Walker and Ojibwe, I have this conversation with a person that has been messaging with me back and forth on Instagram.

Candice Wu 28:43

Ever since that past life podcast, that was like, over six months ago, when I was in Spain, maybe it was eight months ago now. I believe this person who is now my friend had been messaging me and just say that she’s been looking at her past lives, and not just that, but I had just appreciated how she’d been engaging with what I’ve been sharing in my podcast, and it has inspired her in many ways in her own process. And what I didn’t realize was what unfolded in our conversation, when we finally got on WhatsApp together. I had a sudden knowing or feeling that I’ve known her in a past life, and she said, “Yes, I have been Native American before, too.” And when she said that, I realized, we were in that life together. I believe we were in that life together. And I said it and she didn’t think I was crazy. She actually felt it, too, and had all these images come up then that I was around a fire before I died and that she was a younger friend of mine. We were almost like sisters.

Candice Wu 30:08

Everything she was saying, and even hearing her voice. I just cried. I just, I had no idea this conversation would go there. There was a complete connection in my whole being and this knowing it was the feeling like I had found my friend again. Her name is Emily, and she has given me permission to share about her and about my connection with her in this experience of our past life, and how cool is it that we get to talk about this past life that we had together and put together the pieces that feel right. And as this all kept going and evolving, she had received lots of downloads of information and kept sharing with me as well as me to her.

Candice Wu 31:09

And one day, I’m listening to her voice message on WhatsApp about a whole other piece of information that she had received, and this was her side of the storytelling me that her friend had died, which was me, and I’m just crying as I’m hearing this, because I know it’s me, and then she talks, went on to talk about that she had a daughter and more tears from me. And then that she had two boys who were twins, and that they died. And as I’m hearing this, I’m sort of blasted to the present moment when in the seats diagonally behind me, a boy who seemed really overstimulated, and he also perhaps had maybe some Asperger’s or autism. I actually don’t know, for sure, but he made this sound, and it was so perfect. Something had upset him on his laptop, and he made the sound like this, “Huuuuuuuu, huuuuuuu.”

Candice Wu 32:30

And that sound, it made sense. It felt like that was the sound of the grief and perhaps this healing song that would be sung in the tribe, and it was so cool that it just happened in this way that this boy could probably feel the energy of what I was feeling because I was grieving, I was grieving, having lost my friend, and the feeling that my friend had lost me in that life, and that she had been dealing with so much sadness and grief, of loss, not just me, but the boys that she had lost the babies. And the feeling that I had missed that of her life, but in a way, kind of knew also that that was what she was going through. I don’t have any recollection of watching over her or seeing that, but when she says that there is a confirmation in my body, and that is what continues to happen, this confirmation in my body, not just the emotion, but then there’s a deeper knowing that’s beyond the emotion that comes through, and the emotion is very healing and completing.

Candice Wu 33:43

So, now I’ve told you about my horse and my friend that I have known for hundreds of years, and in this life where I got killed, and I’m sure that I’ve met other people that I’ve known in a solo life, and I just never really could recognize the specifics. I just would kind of chalk it up to, yeah, I’m sure I knew them in a past life. There’s a soul of recognition, and to know the specific details of our experiences is incredible, and I believe, and it seems so does my friend Emily, we believe that we have gone through several lives together, and that perhaps the life with the witch, that was the life that I was a witch, she was also witch. I believe that we could have been together at that time, and I don’t have specifics on that at the moment, but I trust that will be revealed to me if it needs to be and when it’s time.

Candice Wu 34:50

So, just a little sidebar that integrates into the story before I tell the rest is that I received an Akashic reading from Venessa Rodriguez. She was on the podcast early on, and you can find her at CandiceWu.com.venessa, that’s VENESSA, and she does Akashic readings combined with nutrition and feeding your wild, feeding your soul, feeding your body, and I love her work. So, I felt like receiving an Akashic reading about this past life, and what my uterus and my body were going through at that time was going to be supportive for me. And what was revealed through that reading through my guides, and through her senses was that, in fact, this past life more was going to be revealed., and that using pine, and other indigenous plants as medicine might be healing from my body, and there was a lot more of information that really supported me, but I won’t go into that today.

Candice Wu 36:12

But that’s the lead up to me heading out to Ohio from Michigan. I’ve got my whole car packed with all my camping gear, and we’re going to spend three nights in Ohio in the Hocking Hills area before this dance residency consulting experience that I’m having right now. And I knew that day, that I was heading out, I just wanted to hang out with the horses. I had just come back from Milwaukee for from a weekend Milwaukee and I needed to go see Cloud Walker and Sunny. And so I spent like way longer than I wanted to in a way out there with the horses, but I just trusted my timing.

Candice Wu 37:03

By the time I got out to the Hocking Hills area, I arrived at about 12:30 am on a Friday night, and I mapped myself to Knox Acres Campgrounds. When I got there through Google, I ended up in a neighborhood that seemed a little creepy in the dark, that had no reception, phonewise, and there was no campsite. Google was like, “You’ve arrived!” And I was like, “Well, I don’t see the campsite.” So, I backtracked and turn around, and I went to the Hocking Hills State Grounds Campsite, which my sister had recommended me not to go, but at that time, at almost 1 am now, I didn’t know where to go, I didn’t play on well, and this was an easy “go-to” given that I had no cell phone reception.

Candice Wu 38:07

So, I get there. It doesn’t look great. It looks like a football field, and almost like a tailgate, and I’m not even quite sure that any of the spaces are available. So, I go back up to the front registration area, and I sit there for a few minutes trying to see if I can receive any phone service or if I remember where some of the other sites were. And I’m just sitting there, it is one in the morning, and suddenly, an officer pulls up next to me and says, “Hey, do you need some help? We are completely full here tonight. So, there are no sites available.” And I was like, “Ah, yes. I need help.”

Candice Wu 38:54

So, I gave him my scenario of you know, where I planned to go and asked if he had any other recommendations, and he finally said he had never heard of Knox Acres, and then he finally said why don’t you go to Top of the Caves. It’s just this and that way. Usually, they’re walking sites. If not, come back and find me. I should be around here. I’m working the night shift. So, I asked him what his name was, and he felt incredibly grateful. His name was Chad, which is my brother’s name, and so, I felt that moment of resonance again that, “Yes, this is a good sign I’m being supported right now.” Not just by him specifically, but I felt like by something beyond. Things were just unfolding in this really cool way.

Candice Wu 39:49

So, I go to the Top of the Caves Campsite, drive around, and this is in fact better. Still not, you know what I’m used to in Michigan, but I couldn’t find something, and finally, I arrived at this location in the campgrounds that seemed just perfect. It was the spot that was of right before the trailhead, which still was. it’s like the most private spot I could find, but also public enough that if something scary were to happen, that I could get help, and people would hear me. And as I looked up, there were all these pine trees, and that was just perfect. After Vanessa’s reading with me, it was like, “This is the spot, and the other spots didn’t have that.” So, I knew it was the right one. I just unpacked my whole car and set up my tent, and it was wonderful.

Candice Wu 41:00

So, the next day, I leisurely get up and decide to go to the closest cave, which was Ash Cave, and as I get out there, I’m just enjoying the hike, like any regular old hike that I’ve been on, even though this is gorgeous, and I’m just taking all that in, but what really got my attention was when I saw feathers on the ground, and I started to pick them up. I know you’re not really supposed to pick up feathers, and you know, for fear of viruses and things like that, and parasites or mites. I was being very careful and put them in a container, and then I saw a whole bunch of more feathers and I was like, “Whoa, where did these come from?” And I saw these feather-like, wings. If you jump on Instagram or the link to this podcast at CandiceWu.com/deepmystery2, I’ll post a picture of the feathers that I saw, and the bird that I saw next.

Candice Wu 42:12

This dead bird on the ground, it looks really fresh, freshly dead, and I just kind of marveled at this bird and these feathers, and the way that these feathers were laid out. And as I got closer, I heard this boy go, “Eww, gross.” And I just, I didn’t even care. I didn’t find it gross whatsoever. I just was magnetized to these feathers and this bird. And suddenly, now I was really paying attention. It was the same as when I saw CW on that stall, for Cloud Walker, I was paying attention, the feathers got my attention.

Candice Wu 42:55

As a little bit of backstory. Years ago, a medium told me that I was being guided by a shaman, a Native American shaman, guided by him and a grey feather. And that was how he would get my attention. And I, at that time, just didn’t know how working with my spirit guides worked. I didn’t have any connection with that, and I just thought that was just something people say, you know, just like if you find a penny on the ground or it was just something that would happen that could make you feel good. And it did. It made me feel good. I felt like something in me did believe that I was being guided, and slowly over time, my connection with this shaman man, medicine man has really supported me because it helps me to feel my sense of belonging with a soul tribe, belonging with healing and medicine, and here is this bird with all these gray feathers, like, “Jackpot!” But I mean, not great for the bird who’s died, but, “Whoa, this is sitting right in front of me.”

Candice Wu 44:13

And so, now that I’m paying attention, I decided to meditate in this cave, and this cave is gorgeous. It’s huge. There are many people in it. So, I sit down to meditate, and I was just flooded about five minutes and with tears with this feeling of home. This is my home. I know this place, mixed with my logical thoughts of, “Are you sure Candice? Do you really know that? How do you know that’s true? Are you just making this up?” Well, I’m feeling in my body, “Yes, this is home and you know it, you have been here. This is where the tribe and other tribes would gather. This is where we had fires. This is where we were together.” And I felt this clear knowing that sometimes I would dance by the fire here with my friend, with other women and girls, and that this wasn’t where I slept. This wasn’t specifically where I would be all the time, but it felt like such a gathering place.

Candice Wu 45:31

So, I let that move through me, let that settle, and as that settled, it still remained there like, “Yes, this is your home.” And it was a softer knowing that it was like, “Yeah.” And there was still a little bit of inner questioning, doubting like, “Really, really?” So, I continue on my way and walk on that trail, and I see this other little segment of a tiny cave that you kind of have to like, go to the side and in go up, and as I went into that space, I felt, “Oh, this is where I slept, sometimes.” This is really an intimate women’s space, and this is where I took feathers and I would make things, would make beautiful things, and I did do the beating, but it wasn’t my primary thing. Feathers were, birds and feathers were just so great and alive for me, not to mention that I was a hunter, and that wasn’t particularly what girls were meant to do, but I was a hunter and I really enjoyed hunting deer. And whenever someone hunted a bird and got a bird, I would be the first to be up there up close, seeing what feathers I could pluck and receive, and to honor the bird.

Candice Wu 46:53

So, I continue on this path again, and I just see a beautiful forest, and I’m getting a sense of a bigger picture. There’s this cave here, there’s a second little cave here, and I’m walking away from this cave. And the question came, which direction did I go when I left the tribe that night that I died?“ And as I looked in that direction I was walking, I could feel that it was, that was the way, and I immediately turned around and said, ”Wait, is that real?” And as I turned around, I felt I’m going home, I’m going home.

Candice Wu 47:44

And so, this back and forth, like, this was going away, and this was going home was so clear, and I had this flashback to the moment where when I was going to this cave, this area Ash Cave, I had texted my sister and said, “I’m going out by myself, I don’t know what I’m going to find, and if I don’t message you by dark, send a search party.” And that was a familiar experience in a way, like, send to someone if I don’t come back before dark, which is also a safety precaution, but I felt this moment of I’m coming home, and as I felt that in me, and I walked back towards the caves, I knew that what I was meant to receive that day was enough, and it was already completely magical enough, and I felt myself come home, walk home to my family, my tribe, my mother and my mothers, and I did that very consciously and almost ceremoniously, as a way to arrive back in honor of who I am and my sense of belonging, and all of the information that I’m receiving that as part of my belonging and who I am in this particular life and in that particular life.

Candice Wu 49:18

So, it was like a family constellation of my past life family, coming home to my mothers. So, want to make a little comments about the doubt in me because I had gone on a couple of other hikes during that camping trip, and use that as a bit of a measure or a test to see if other places would ignite the same kind of experience in me, and some of the places I went to were like two miles away or three or even eight and 11 miles away. I had the sense in those places that it was somewhat foreign, and that the land wasn’t the kind of land that I’ve lived on, but that sometimes I may have been passing through or hunting, but that would have been a long journey to some of those places, but the feeling of resonance wasn’t there. It was a completely different experience.

Candice Wu 50:22

Have you had any of these kinds of experiences? I’m curious, if you do lean in to trusting and believing what happens then, it’s like a choose your own adventure, like, for a long time, I chose to not believe certain things or not really embrace them in terms of knowing things I know, but maybe I can’t prove, but as I’ve deepened into trusting and knowing, and that has all come with my process of healing, and completing trauma and not being traumatized in my body, but feeling resourced and that embodied, that has all given me the access to these kinds of experiences where I can embrace knowing. So, have you had that experience or do you want to? Do you want to lean into some messages that you’re receiving or information that you’re unfolding in your life? Or little signs and cues that might lead you to the next breadcrumb.

Candice Wu 51:43

It just would be an interesting experiment if nothing else. What happens if you follow those gut, impulses that just last a split second? Is this the way to following your intuition? Is this the way to that deep, intuitive trust?

Candice Wu 52:04

So, I want to close today’s podcast with a poem I wrote that I actually wrote before I connected with the land and Hocking Hills Ash Cave, but completely connects. It’s called The Foolish Journey.

Candice Wu 52:23

I died three lifetimes ago. Silence screaming, innocence shed. Horse, you felt the knife in my uterus, our souls intertwined and bled. Father, frantic and furious blood of His blood, an unspeakable day. How dare white man take the heart of the Ojibwe? Sweet friend, we ran with stars in our pockets, you and me, swallowing moon in our bellies, foolish eyes, only beginning to see. Fierce and stubborn know themselves in me. How could this soul stay inside beaded lines? Mother cannot give life to look, the night forest and fire gave signs. A white man of the dark, I let this bond go. Who is more foolish? Pain asks to flow. Mothers of mother and white man, feather, father, horse and friend, I come home a new knowing. I am all of you, the beginning of that end. Soul of suns and moons ago, more life, I can now make. Wiser with more knowing, the foolish journey I would never not take.

Candice Wu 54:01

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this poem and what’s unfolding for me, and here if you have stories of your own, of what’s revealing to you, what your knowing is, and your experiences of past life. If this poem didn’t make any sense to you, it might be helpful to listen to the deep mystery of life episode where I talk about the story of what happened with the white man, with my father, with the horse — The Foolish Journey. That episode again is that CandiceWu.com/deepmystery, and it’s the first part of this second episode. And I hope that you enjoyed this, it’s really quite a story to tell, and it’s hard to tell all the pieces in a flow, and I’m developing this into a story of a piece where I’m going to submit it to a publication.

Candice Wu 55:03

So, hopefully, by then I have it a little more integrated in terms of how to thread all the pieces together, but isn’t that the way life is threading pieces together of who you are and finding the pieces that integrate into a larger hole. And if we have access to our past life experience, it gives us a large dimension of that opening of more. As I said all of this has given me more trust in my life, and I can feel even more energies that come from this past life, from the connections that I had, my family, my tribe, from nature. My ability to connect with nature is really much more turned on, as well as my connection with horses, and I am just so much more in myself and in my body.

Candice Wu 56:08

Thank you so much for listening to my story, and my sharing, and I appreciate that you’re there. And if you’ve listened all the way up to here, thank you, thank you so much. It’s such a gift to be seen and heard here and to also connect with you on your journey and interweave, and that’s how it even started with my friend Emily, where she just shared something that inspired her on my podcast, and we started talking and then eventually got on the phone together and revealed all this. I’m so grateful for you, Emily, and our continued friendship which it feels so deep already, even just after our show time of knowing each other in this life.

Candice Wu 57:04

Ah, and the last thing I want to mention is regarding signs. Sometimes, the signs come in opposite ways. I remember all through growing up and probably up until last year, I thought, “Who would ever want to go to Ohio?” Like nothing’s in Ohio, the cornfields, and I think that’s just what people say and I’m sure we could say that about a lot of states, but it was specifically Ohio, that I would talk that way about like it almost be like, “Oh, well.” It’s sort of like going to Ohio, if I wanted to describe a place that was completely boring and awful.

Candice Wu 57:46

So, I invite you also to tune into the things that you just randomly dislike or despise or talk badly about for no reason, and maybe you think you have a reason, but maybe you really don’t. That might be a really interesting place to look, and it only was when my brother Chad said, “Hey, I’m going to Hocking Hills, Ohio” And he showed me the pictures. He really had to show me the pictures to get me to think that that was an interesting thing to do. I had to be really proven. And so, look where we are now, I think Ohio is gorgeous, and after looking at the meaning of Ohio, it is the Iroquoian word for it is beautiful.

Candice Wu 58:40

So, I am humbled, and yes, that’s all for today. Thanks again for tuning in, and if you want to stay in touch with me through my bi-monthly newsletters, you can connect with that at CandiceWu.com/embody, and that’s where you’ll get all the updates of podcasts, experientials, and all sorts of other fun and nourishing tidbits on self-love and healing. And also, be sure to check out the transcripts on the podcasts that are at each podcast link. You can find all the podcasts and search through them at CandiceWu.com/podcast. And also, you can find specifically the meditations and experientials that are on the podcast. You can find those separately on a page that’s also searchable, the whole database of all of the meditations at CandiceWu.com/meditations.

Candice Wu 59:43

Looking forward to connecting with you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

In this episode, I talked about Horse Constellations and Somatic Healing with horses, my personal experiences of this as well as what it’s like to do healing work with horses at liberty. This episode highlights my five nights with Sarah Fancy at Silver Horse Retreat in Ranchita, California.

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 0:57

If you’d like to experience family and systemic constellations, you are in luck, I have a workshop coming up in Chicago, it’s called Restore the Flow of Love. With anything that you’re experiencing in life, whether it’s related to love life, relationships, your career, your home space, or how you experience yourself in the world in any way, you can set up a constellation to look at the underlying dynamics, the hidden dynamics of what’s going on, that may be a struggle for you or a challenge. And allow the organic healing and balancing to emerge so that you can step more forward into your joy, your love, and the flow of love and life through you, as well as what you desire in life.

Candice Wu 1:49

The beauty is we can do all that without sharing any mental information, and by tuning into the dynamics for each other as representative in each other’s constellations. It’s a beautiful process, and I encourage you to check it out at CandiceWu.com/flowoflove. This workshop is on July 21st, 2019, in Chicago, Illinois, and if you’ve missed this one, and want to know about others, you can find more events at CandiceWu.com/events. All this is also linked in the show notes, so, feel free to go to the website at CandiceWu.com/horseconstellations.

Candice Wu 2:30

Hello, welcome back everyone. A couple of weeks ago I spoke about dancing and meditating with horses at Sarah Fancy’s horse ranch called Silver Horse Retreat, and this was me talking about three different meditations that I had with Silver, the horse that was 35 years old, and how I learned how to dance with horses, and communicate with them in ways telepathically as well as with my body, with my energy, with my mind, my heart. You can find that episode at CandiceWu.com/dancingwithhorses. And in this episode, I want to talk about how I did some healing work with horses and the mentorship program that I went through to learn how to do this as well as experienced it myself in different ways.

Candice Wu 3:24

I learned how to set up horse constellations, so family constellations, systemic constellations, with horses, as well as to do some somatic work and experiencing around horses, to support people in transformation in how they see themselves, what they want, and what wants to unfold and emerge in their lives, on their journey.

Candice Wu 3:48

Before we go there, I want to talk a little bit about this experience where people talk about the heaviness of their emotions or the darkness in them and judging the darkness in them. So, you might have said it yourself or hear people say that they don’t want to be in the darkness. They want to feel lightness, they want to feel the good emotions, and not the bad or not be in the heavy emotions. Sometimes, people say the negative and the positive emotions, and I want to just clarify one thing here today is that if you’ve been listening to the show, you probably know that I don’t believe in positive or negative emotions. I believe that all emotions are supportive to us on our journey. We need them all, in order to understand where we’re at and to support us in what else there is to know about ourselves, to support us in knowing how we feel about some things so that it can inform the next step.

Candice Wu 4:51

We need anger to show us that something didn’t feel right, we’re boundaries are. We need sadness, to show us what something meant to us and what we desire. We need disappointment to show us what we wanted and how badly we wanted something. All these can direct us towards what we want, what we hope for and what really brings us joy in life. And so, this idea that the dark part of us is one that’s undesirable, and the dark includes emotions like frustration, anger, sadness, disappointment, these dark emotions. While these emotions may feel hard to experience, while they may be unpleasant, and they may feel dark or heavy. That in itself is not meant to be a judgment. The dark parts of us are actually the shadow, the darkness in us. The parts of us that we judge and blame or that we criticize as bad, that we feel we do not want, we want to discard and us, that’s our shadow self. And all of those parts are actually wanting to come into the light and be held within the light so that we can see they’re actually here to support us.

Candice Wu 6:14

The things that we believe are negative, they’re actually not. They’re here to support us. And our darkness, our shadow is just what we have yet to claim as part of that wholeness of who we are. Somewhere along the way, we got the message that certain experiences, certain thoughts, or emotions are not meant for us to be felt or we should not feel them or we should not express them, and that can become part of our shadow. We are here to experience all of it. And to know ourselves and to know who we are not through all of that as well. To know that we are not those emotions, we are the part of us that is witnessing those emotions, those experiences that brought us to feel something.

Candice Wu 7:08

So, when we use the dark and the light to separate ourselves from certain experiences, like we don’t want to feel those because they’re dark, that just creates more separation, and cuts us off from the wholeness that we are that wants to feel it all, and wants to be informed with wisdom by all of it. It’s interesting to bring this up today because with horses, whenever I was fully in my emotion, no matter what it was, especially if it was sadness or anger or a weird sound that came out of some need to protect, the horses really respond to that. They would often come near me or they would be present with me. They liked being around because I was congruent with the feeling that was emerging inside of me, and I was able to witness it and be with it. And wasn’t putting some of that away or hiding it, where they kind of had to guess what I was about.

Candice Wu 8:16

I was fully clear with what I was feeling in that moment, in those moments and the horses like that, they don’t care what the emotion is they just like that you’re in it fully. And they can see clearly what’s happening in that moment, they can understand and be with you. So, horses really show us there’s no need to be afraid of any of those emotions. They’re not running away when I feel anger, they understand. And they see that there isn’t a danger. Horses tend to run or protect right away when they’re scared, and they’re not scared of that at all. They’re not scared of the sadness, the deep grief that might come up.

Candice Wu 9:02

So, this leads me right to the healing work that I was doing with horses and the learning of facilitating horse constellations and somatic work. The simplest aspects of being with a horse and experiencing what that’s like, what it feels like in my body, what comes up in me, that is so basic, yet profound, because horses bring such a gift.

Candice Wu 9:31

So, all of these horses that I was working with at Silver Horse Retreat with Sarah Fancy, all the seven horses were at liberty within their living space. So, it was a large arena with plant life and rocks. And they could be totally in the other corner of us where we’re doing our healing work, or they could come near. And the first experience I had was defining an intention that I’d like to step into for myself in my life and to be in the space with the horses, and just feel myself. So, it was like a Somatic Experiencing session with the horses around.

Candice Wu 10:15

My desire for myself was to be fully in my knowing, trust fully in my knowing and follow through with my knowing. And Sarah’s first question to me was, “Well, don’t you already do that?” And I do, I do do that in so many parts of my life. There are some places that I know something, and I might tuck it away to not know it fully, and let myself be a little blind to it, quote and quote, because in a way, it’s just an illusion to myself, fooling myself in a way to get something else out of the experience that I really do want as well. Or there may be a fear underneath it that if I actually acknowledge my knowing, my wisdom fully in this situation, that I’d have to change something or I’d have to say no to something that I want something else from. And so, this was my intention, and she asked me to just stand in the space where there were three different horses. And again, it was a large space, so they could be free to join in or to walk away and beyond their own.

Candice Wu 11:31

I went inside the arena and stood next to this tree, this kind of tree bush. And as I got in there and started to feel my body, feel what my emotions were, what my sensations were inside, I felt really safe next to this tree. I had the tree behind me and was facing just kind of an enclosed view, so, I felt tucked away here, and then I started feeling really sad. And as I was feeling that, I recognize that I was holding on now to the tree, my right arm was holding on to the tree. The impulse came to me to push away the tree was like a codependent relationship. On one hand, I like this tree here, and it serves me. And on the other hand, I was so angry with it, I wanted to get it away from me, it was taking from me, I felt like I was shrinking, and I couldn’t quite move my feet. Literally, I felt that in my legs, and my ankles like my feet didn’t really want to move.

Candice Wu 12:42

So, I followed that and the horses weren’t really nearby, and she said just to continue on as if they’re not there, and just be in my feeling. And before long, I felt I could let go of this tree. So, I let go and release with my arm. And as soon as I did that, Silver, one of the horses came to me. Silver’s the one I’ve been meditating with. He came right over to me and started using his head to give me affection. So, rubbing the left side of my body vigorously. And I felt him like push me, push me. I felt him move my feet, and I just allowed it to happen and I laughed a little bit. And Sarah asked me, did I notice that silver came right away when I let go? And I did. It’s amazing how instantaneous that happens that something changed in me and the horses could feel it without even seeing what was going on. They knew, and that created a change and a shift in them.

Candice Wu 13:54

I could hear the other horses moving around, but they weren’t close. There was Meiji, the spotted Appaloosa horse that I really like, and Jackie, another horse there. So, I’m receiving Silver’s nudging affection, I’m able to move a little bit. And now I feel my left leg is movable, flexible, mobile. And Sarah asked me, “What was going on?” and I said, “Well, I just want to go over there, I think I need to go away from this tree.” And yet, my right foot feels stuck. I feel like I need to drag it. And she said, “Well, go ahead,” which I wasn’t expecting in that moment. So, I literally took my hands and grabbed my leg, stepped with my left foot away from this tree and dragged this leg, and of course, I exaggerated a little because it really wanted to feel what this was like. And it was it felt like the right thing. It felt like actually something that was going on in my system.

Candice Wu 15:10

This is where we tend to override what our body is showing us and we just walk like normal or we try to. And yet these underlying energies that shape our physical body do affect us. And so, when we pay attention to that, it can really show us what’s going on here. And it was so powerful in this moment. Here I am, dragging my right foot away from this tree that represents some codependent relationship, codependent experience that I’m having, and I have to drag myself away or want to drag myself away. And this right leg just wants to keep staying. And it just so happens that I have had a lot of tension and holding in my right side more so than my left, and I’m aware that that has often represented the masculine energy, my connection with my father, and the lineage on the father side.

Candice Wu 16:13

And this codependent dynamic that I was working with, it did appear to me as many things, which I won’t go into all the details, but it did feel like it was related to a father dynamic that I had before, a piece of our relationship that was showing up in other parts of my life, presently. And ways that I didn’t want to leave it, but it also didn’t really want to stay in it. And I could feel that happening in aspects of my current life, experiences where I wanted to stay sort of, but I wanted to leave sort of, and I couldn’t be full in one or the other. It’s like me being split into. So, this dragging my right leg away and walking away slowly, was so painful, it meant that I had to accept the pain of the codependency that you accept the painful part of this dynamic that I was holding off from feeling while staying in it.

Candice Wu 17:22

So, I’m dragging my leg, I’m crying, and now Silver is walking around me and Jackie comes. And they’re all just, those two are just circling around being away and moving around me, which feels like it’s helping me move even more. And at some point, one of the horses stood in front of me in the direction I was going. And I stopped and realized, actually, yeah, I needed it to be going towards the back left side of me where there was open space. I think it was Jackie standing there. So, I noticed that and felt in me the resource, the strength to turn around and face that direction. And as I turned around, I could sense that my left side, my stronger side was nearer to the tree than my right, and that gave even more to my right leg more mobility.

Candice Wu 18:19

And I then I felt as soon as I did that, Meiji came over. I love Meiji, she’s that spotted appaloosa that she’s white with black and gray spots. And she came right next to me to my left side. And as I took one step, she took one step. And it was just the sweet, sweet support that she was giving me. I took another step if I could feel my left leg move pretty easily and my right leg heavy, heavy and feeling like I can only imagine that’s just how, if this foot is injured or if I was a child and walking for the first time, this unfamiliarity in this leg, in the movement of this leg, there’s stuck energy there. One step forward, and Meiji took a step forward. And it kept going like this for a time, and I was wiggling my right toes and ankles, just learning to let this leg be free and to walk away from this painful dynamic that needed to end.

Candice Wu 19:27

And as I looked out, and I saw this open space, I could breathe. And it started to feel worth it to walk away. And the unknown feeling and uncertainty of looking and walking away in the direction of my knowing, of what I knew I needed to do for myself, started to feel a little less scary. And Meiji’s still next to me, and now Jackie’s walking around me, and now Silver’s getting close to my right side. And it just started to feel like they were circling around me in a way or moving about in my space, where previously while I was by the tree, none of them really wanted to be near. And that gave me a feeling of, wow, there’s so much abundance here, there’s so much resource, there’s so much strength, and things that can come in and out of my life with flow. And I can receive at all, I can be with them, with the horses and with what shows up.

Candice Wu 20:36

And as I took more steps forward and felt more fortified in that feeling, in my body, felt my right leg able to move even more. I turned around to look and Jackie had stood between me and the tree so that I couldn’t quite see the tree anymore. And that helps me turn around and keep going. And a couple of minutes later, the next time I turned around to look, Jackie and Silver were facing in opposite directions next to each other with their heads turned like a heart shape in a way they were mutually grooming each other’s backs, and each other’s main. And so, I saw this representing there’s love here, there’s a lot of love here. And if I walk away from what was somewhat loving, but codependent, I will find new love.

Candice Wu 21:34

That was really powerful for me to see and beautiful and so, so delightful. And then I was able to see the tree in my clear sight and see that it was okay, I was okay with that tree over there. And that dynamic over there, and I could look at it without going back. And I had full mobility to turn around and walk into my life. And so, Sarah eventually asked me, “Is this where your knowing is, this is where you’re following through with your knowing, and trusting?” And it was so clear, it was a yes, it felt really easy to be there and my body could move.

Candice Wu 22:15

So, this session was about experiencing my body somatically, and allowing what wanted to emerge, to emerge and allowing the horses to join in. And for me to experience what it was like to be with them and their interactions with me. And for me, that’s not far from horse constellation. It’s just being in the space, allowing the horses to show up as well, and provide support and resource. This is something I absolutely love to do. And I’m so excited to offer. I don’t have my own horses yet. But if there’s anyone out there that’s interested in doing this and has a horse or has a friend with a horse that we can set this up, I’m game. I’m just thrilled because being with horses provides this connection with the spiritual world, the energetic and spiritual world that we cannot see with our eyes, but we know is there. And it bridges the earthly and spiritual world as Sarah would say, in a way that accesses so much resource and knowing that we can bring into our lives. So, being with horses in this way gives such a gift.

Candice Wu 23:39

So, I also want to talk about horse constellations, more specifically, what are they and how they work. And what I experienced with Sarah and my mentorship with her family constellations, and systemic constellations, as well as nature constellations, are setups in which we can use objects, people, and horses, we can invite them into the space to represent different parts of dynamics that are going on within us. So, as I described my earlier experience, the tree was representing something. And at different points, the horses were representing, or bringing meaning to me as a symbol of something, of resource of some sort.

Candice Wu 24:22

And when we do horse constellations, we also invite the horses at liberty, where they’re free to move about and join in, or they’re free to say no and walk away. And they’re free to represent something for us that wants to be seen and the energy of what’s here. We can allow the horses to come in and just show us what they may be representing. We may begin to feel and know something as they emerge in the space if they do, and the feeling of being around them and the emotion, the energy that they’re showing us, can really show us something that wants to be seen.

Candice Wu 25:08

So, in this experience with Sarah, Sarah represented me, and we call them the four directions to hold the space, and I was able to witness. We also had her dog, Little Bear there, and he was sitting next to me on a leash. And as we were calling in the four directions, Jackie came over right away. So, all the seven horses were in this space and available to join if they wanted to. And Jackie was the only one that came, and I was so grateful. She just came right away and knew it’s like she knew what was going on. She knew she wanted to be there. And she stayed there the whole time. Near the end, a couple of the other horses joined, and it was interesting that they just touched in for that moment of the knowing that came through at the end of the constantly. And it was as if they knew it was over and the resolution was there, the fullness was there, and they wanted to join.

Candice Wu 26:09

So, Sarah didn’t know that much about my life, and that’s how constellations works when you have someone represent yourself or other people in your life, other dynamics in your life. The representatives can tune into how you feel, how you relate to specific people, the movement of your body, the energy of your body, and what’s going on underneath the surface without any mental knowledge. And so, it’s amazing when we invite, for example, someone’s parents to show up in the space. And we see their dynamic unfold, and the client says, “Yeah, that’s what’s happening. ”Or “Yeah, my mom can’t even look at me?” That’s how it feels.

Candice Wu 26:58

Often, our younger experiences show up, a part of us feels unseen by a parent or two, or is tangled up in a dynamic. And our adult self feels something different. And so, here in this constellation, I just want to highlight a few things that really struck me and I brought home with me. Jackie stood in the space, she stood right in the space and did not move, did not budge. And Sarah, as a representative for me, Candice, started walking around her, walking in circles, walking in circles. And she reported, “I feel fine, I feel fine.” But I feel a little bit restless, I don’t know where I’m going exactly. And now I’m getting tired. And so, she stopped, which reflected a part of me, there’s a part of me that isn’t sure where to land in terms of a living space, where to go next. And she reported that Jackie started to feel like a responsibility, a duty that she that I was circling around. And then she picked up some energy and started walking again. But she decided to go the other way.

Candice Wu 28:20

And I saw this and felt, “Oh, my goodness,” like, this is exactly what’s happening. There’s this feeling of responsibility somewhere living in me, and it may relate to family and ancestry and something that my culture, through my lineage that isn’t yet resolved. In the Chinese culture, there’s this sense that you have a duty and responsibility to your family to take care of them, especially as the oldest child that your parents are your responsibility, your elderly or your responsibility. And there’s something about that, that became so heavy for me. And despite that sense, I wasn’t really aware that it was becoming so heavy for me, I thought that this was something that I had cleared up and felt okay with, but here it was showing up and this restlessness running around it and then turning around and going in the other direction, but still walking the same path. Felt so painful to see and so poignant, and absurd. Like I laughed out loud, but I also cried at the same time. And Jackie, the horse was just standing there, fully present and taking up the space.

Candice Wu 29:39

And later, Sarah, stopped and started looking at the mountains and said, “I just need to go there and breathe into the fresh air and be in that space.” And eventually, she consulted with me as the client and wanted to check in with what I wanted to do and what was needed here. And it was really unclear, but something shifted in me as I was witnessing this. And I was feeling the plants around me. And the words that came from Sarah as a representative for me, were that this is enough. And she pointed to the plants, to my family, to duty, to responsibility, to everything that was in my life. And said, “This is all enough.” Little Bear, the dog that was there, started looking at me, and like crying like: “Help me, cuddle with me, be with me.”, and started nipping at Sarah, like wanting her. And his eyes looking at me. Definitely, like the biggest sad puppy dog looking eyes, just showed how much my family was wanting me to be around, the feeling that I got about my family at least and like this desperation of sorts, like, please be with us, be with us. And yet it felt heavy to me.

Candice Wu 31:10

But when the shifting internally happened and the words that this is all enough began to happen, I could feel that and all of that started to shift and it started to feel like it wasn’t so heavy anymore. And it wasn’t a giant shift of what was going on. It’s not about what I chose, or what I needed to choose, it really just was this subtle shift in me that what felt like responsibility and duty, could be such a beautiful resource to me. And as I felt this Jackie turned and turned towards me and put her legs towards me and wanted me to scratch her legs. And I was doing it, and it was just a really speed interaction, and I liked it, I felt so connected. And the message I was getting was, there’s so much here in your Chinese roots that wants to be acknowledged, and can bring you support, and can also be part of your healing work with others, that you can bring in, like, take these gifts, receive these gifts, this is all enough. And I could feel that coming through me and shift my system.

Candice Wu 32:30

So, when we’re doing constellations, we’re just open to what is emerging and what the energy of the feeling is, and what happens next, what literally happens, what we see, what we feel, and what the animals show us, what nature shows us. All of it is part of things. And what I love is that we can begin to see our lives that way, we can begin to receive messages from all things around us. Receive the resource of the water, the grass, the trees, the message that the bird comes and gives us, we can talk to nature and the animals, we can see that it’s enough.

Candice Wu 33:20

And so I wanted to share this experience of my horse constellation to offer this message as well as introduce you, if this is new to you, to how constellations with horses work, how constellations work in general. And as I said, I don’t have my horses yet. But I feel that that may be coming or some connection, deeper connection with horses is emerging. But if you do have horses in your space, and you’re wanting this work, wanting to experience it, feel free to reach out to me or Sarah Fancy, she’s an expert at it, and you can go to her space and experience her retreats.

Candice Wu 34:09

And just know that this experience is out there. There are so many ways to experience healing and transformation, and to know and see things. This beautiful gift of being with horses it’s just something that I can’t wait to share with people, and I hope that you received something from this sharing of my experience here.

Candice Wu 34:37

So, thanks so much for listening. Again, you can connect up with my episode on Dancing and Meditating with the horses at CandiceWu.com/dancingwithhorses. And also, the first time that I experienced an equine-assisted learning session was with Joy Curran, and that was in Australia. What a gift that was, really that changed my life and that was only a year ago. It was only a year ago that I began to fall in love with horses, and really shift my life to connect with horses more. That episode can be found at CandiceWu.com/joy. And there’s also a video of my experience where Joy worked with me and her horse, Chaya, to allow me to bring a dream that I was having at night, at night dream to life with this horse.

Candice Wu 35:36

So, if you want to know more about Sarah, she’s going to be on the podcast coming up. But you can find her at silverhorse.org, and @SaraaFancy on Instagram, and I’ll link to her in the show notes. I’m just so grateful to her and her horses for showing me this very beautiful connection that I can have with horses and ways I can work with horses that feel so natural to me. I’m so ready to do this. And thank you.

Candice Wu 36:08

Before we go, I’d like to invite you to receive my bi-monthly newsletters where I talk about my experiences, my travels, as well as keep you updated on retreats, workshops, and podcasts at CandiceWu.com/embody, and feel free to jump on my website to listen to other podcasts about various topics around trauma, constellations, somatic work, and healing, loving yourself as well as all the guests that I have on the show and their healing experientials that they offer. You can find all that at CandiceWu.com/podcast.

Candice Wu 36:48

Thanks so much for joining me today. You can always reach out to me if you have questions, feedback, would like to know more or have topic requests that you’d like to hear about on the podcast, you can find me at my website, and I so appreciate you being here. Thanks so much. Take care and I’ll see you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

In this episode, we have Francesca Mason boring who is a facilitator of family constellation, systemic constellation and nature constellation. And she asks the simple question, “Who is in this family?” In this episode, she talks about the earthy kind of sacred, the kind of sacred you can dig your toes into, as well as the ability to know that it’s always present within us, and how we respect and bring the ancestors into our healing process.

Candice Wu 0:31

Hello, and welcome. You’re listening to the Embody Podcast, a show about remembering and embodying your true nature, inner wisdom, embodied healing, and self-love. 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 1:07

This episode is sponsored by My Workshops. If you’d like to get a taste of family constellations work, there’s a workshop coming up on July 21, 2019, in Chicago, in Pilsen. It’s called Restore the Flow of Love, and it’s perfect for this episode as you’ll get a taste of family constellations from Francesca’s perspective. And you can come and join in and have your own personal constellation setup or come in and represent for other’s constellations.

Candice Wu 1:39

So, whether it’s something related to your family life, your love life, career, the way you experience the world, your joy, your emotional world, anything under the sun, we can work with constellations to support what is the hidden dynamic underneath it all, that may be wanting to emerge that you can be in the flow of your love, the flow of your ancestry’s love, and the flow of your life. So, much of our dynamics connect with the hidden experiences of our ancestry or dynamics that were silenced, things that did not want to be looked at before, that are still living with us now. So, if there was something tragic, difficult, a loss that was hard, or something that just didn’t want to be looked at the time, that can be connected with you and your life now and affect anything in your life.

Candice Wu 2:35

So, constellations is a way to look at those in an embodied way. allow those to resolve in an organic way, and then bring you towards the flow of love that assures you into life, with so much more of yourself. You can find this workshop at CandiceWu.com/flowoflove. If this date has passed, you can check out CandiceWu.com/events for other workshops that are coming up, and you can always check in with Francesca’s website to check out her workshops. I encourage you to reach out to her if you’re interested in having a taste of nature, constellations, and the way that she works.

Candice Wu 3:13

Welcome back, everyone. It’s fantastic to have you here. Today, we’re just going to jump right into the episode with Francesca Mason Boring. I love this episode, because there’s such a sweetness to the way Francesca speaks about her work, the way that she speaks about herself and the world. There’s such respect and appreciation. And I also feel a great reminder of our innate knowing, as well as the ability to heal in such a simple way of connecting with where we came from, to know where we came from, to know our roots, as well as to know the roots through nature, to connect with nature in a way that brings us to our resource, brings us to our strength as well as back to where we came from.

Candice Wu 4:05

Francesca is an author, international facilitator, teacher and lecturer and she works with Universal Indigenous Fields, Family Constellation, and has supported the development of constellation as ceremony, as community constellations, and nature constellations. Francesca has also graciously offered a piece of her writing called Family Systems Constellation and the Legacy of the Natural World Supporting Resilience. This is a beautiful piece of writing. Here’s one quote from her, “We embody belonging when we feel the ground.”

Candice Wu 4:42

She also speaks about how we are visitors on earth, and that this magnificent sphere here was here long before human beings. In this, she offers a couple of different meditations that you can practice and use on your own and offers a perspective of how to see life, how to see the opportunity of being on earth. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/francesca. So, without further ado, here is Francesca Mason Boring.

Candice Wu 5:15

I’m just thrilled to invite you, Francesca Mason Boring to the show today. Thank you so much for being here and welcome.

Francesca Mason Boring 5:23

Thank you, Candice. It’s really wonderful to be able to hear your voice, and I appreciate your program and all the good things you’re selling on your website and learn more about you. Thank you.

Candice Wu 5:34

Thank you. Same to you, Francesca, I love looking at your website. And I was so honored to meet you, I think it was to about two years ago at the North American Systemic Constellation Conference, Workshop or retreat, and got the chance to work with you. And I’m so inspired by your work and just your presence. And you are doing all sorts of constellation work, especially work with ritual and ceremony, and nature. And I love to just invite you to share how you see yourself on your journey now and where you are.

Francesca Mason Boring 6:16

Wow. Well, I, first of all, I feel very fortunate, I feel like this is a remarkable time that we’re living in. It seems as though it’s a time where we have a lot of different kinds of technology. For instance, we’re able to have this conversation and share with other people that we may never be lucky enough to meet in person. But we can still share from our hearts and really connect. So, we have all of those levels that are happening, and at the same time, I think that there is this remembering, a bringing back and a recalling, and embodying again, a lot of different elements of what we sometimes refer to as wisdom traditions.

Francesca Mason Boring 7:06

So, having the good fortune to encounter, first, was usually presented as family systems constellation. And then it really started to blossom, and there was origination constellations, and it felt very natural, very important, that nature also be included, both acknowledging our relationship to nature, but also really looking at what nature provides us in terms of nurturing and resources, and actual support. So, there are so many different variations now of constellation work, but when I encountered that it seemed so similar to many different Native American and other indigenous ceremonies. And so, it was just a really natural emergence that one began to, to really appreciate that there was the very real experience for many people that looking at families, and looking at connectedness, and looking at all the love stories, all the sad stories, in our own family stems was actually sacred.

Francesca Mason Boring 8:20

And so. that inner knowing, really allowed for a very easy, very organic kind of incorporation with a lot of wisdom traditions that had been in that space for a really long time, with a lot of care, and being aware of some kinds of cautions and elements of respect, and asking for permission to step into those fields. So, yeah, I find myself feeling, first of all, really fortunate to be at this time when we have these technologies, the ability to travel, to see other communities and other cultures, but also to be at a juncture where many of the mechanistic modalities are saying, it’s so we bake the pie without any fruit in it, we left something out. And so, that was kind of going back and saying, “Oh, yeah, the old recipes call for this kind of this element.” You know, that really allows us to feel like we really are full and cared for and has something that has a history in it.

Candice Wu 9:33

Oh!

Francesca Mason Boring 9:35

So, yeah.

Candice Wu 9:36

Oh, I love that. Yeah. And you’re just reminding me, before I jumped on the conversation, I thought, how do we want to open this space with you, Francesca? And I felt like I wanted to invite you to do that as well, but I felt very strongly that I wanted to hold the space and invite you and all of your ancestors and nature, and your connections and relations to this conversation if they would like to be, and also mine. Is there a way that you want to honor that or open the space?

Francesca Mason Boring 10:15

Primarily, by saying “thank you”, I really feel like that is such a good way to encounter anyone, and I thank you very much for that. It really reminds me in just such a gentle way that one of the things that I hope will eventually emerge, when you named all of that, when you name nature and when you where saying ancestors, and that the warmth of an invitation, one of the things that I really think there’s hope, there’s something very concrete and beautiful in constellation work, because I have a hope that at some point as more and more people in social work and psychology, medicine, teaching people who are working with human beings, I have really a hope that one of the things that will come out of systems constellation and systemic thinking is that everyone will be able to make that internal gesture.

Francesca Mason Boring 11:23

So, not just the invitation, but also that the other side of that coin is really acknowledging this incredible capacity so that when I see someone, even if I see them as a client, even if I see someone that maybe my conditioning says that’s a wounded person, or we have different terms, fragile, or all of those things, if I really see someone in context, see them held by nature, see them held and supported and a result of thousands of generations of people who pass life on, then I think providers would be able to take a breath, because that horrible feeling of weight, and responsibility and all the concerns that come when we’re conditioned to believe that someone is diminished by their experience or their fragility or their diagnosis, I really hold a hope that that kind of invitation that you expressed, which I so love, that if everyone had that perspective, particularly people who work with folks, that there would be something so much easier and what they’re doing so much, they would feel so much more supportive and know that whoever they encounter is very much supported as well. So, yeah, thank you so much for that.

Candice Wu 12:49

Absolutely. Thank you, Francesca. That is huge. I feel that when you said that, that we could just take a breath, naturally, with that knowing with that acknowledgment and recognition. And I remember when I first started working with constellations that, especially as a facilitator, I was aware of that mental idea, like drawing upon the resource of the family system, honoring it, and holding the space for it. But really having that from the inside and believing it, and letting every part of me be congruent with that, was that breath! It was that acknowledgment that there’s so much wisdom here that I know nothing of, perhaps. Perhaps I do, but that there’s so much resource there, right? That doesn’t weigh on me to bring forward, right? Yeah.

Francesca Mason Boring 13:53

Well, and the other part of that, I think that one of the things that’s been kind of an outcropping of that is genuine ahh, really when I think of how many people it took for us to be here, just the being able to kind of dance with history and all the miracles, and all the tragedies, and all of the things that have happened, that so many people had to get something right for us to be here, that is, I mean, some people almost overuse it. But I think it’s the term awesome, really, to be just filled with ahh. It really strikes me in that way. And I think, maybe that’s part of the interface with the sacred but a very earthy kind of sacred, I mean, the kind of sacred that you can dig your toes into. It just is so earth-based and so real, and I just, I love that. I really love that.

Candice Wu 14:55

Um, it’s really beautiful. And so, for people here, Francesca today listening, that aren’t aware of constellations and nature constellation, and systemic constellation, what would you say about that today?

Francesca Mason Boring 15:10

It is so beautiful. It is the first thing that I would say, and that’s kind of…

Candice Wu 15:16

Yeah.

Francesca Mason Boring 15:17

….sounds almost right. But actually, it’s a very beautiful modality that, again, it mirrors, many different traditions, many different kinds of traditional wisdom. So, family constellation, the end result is that for many people, it increases the flow of love within a family system. So, it’s very concrete, the end result for a lot of people is that there really is a sense of transformation in how I actually view people in my family system, because since the work really looks at families in a systemic way, we’re actually looking at people in context. So, we’re looking at what happened for this person to be anxious? Or what happened for this person to be angry? Or for this person to be mean? And when we look, we’re really looking from a larger lens, we’re looking actually from many generations, what is the cumulative effect of something that happened in a previous generation.

Francesca Mason Boring 16:37

So, in systems constellation, we actually place representatives for different people in a family system. When there is an issue, we identify primary people in that system who interface with that issue. And then there is this really lovely knowing that emerges in the people who represent, it can also be if someone represents the people that are involved in a conflict or some history of a family being stuck financially or emotionally, or even having some kind of repetitive, dynamic with illness. It can also be that rather than human representatives, placing people, if a person is doing it privately, one-on-one, you can simply use felt squares or some other elements, something akin to what people use when they do sanctuary work, that you can use other kinds of images to basically, spatially represent different people who are involved in a particular issue or conflict.

Francesca Mason Boring 17:50

And then there is a knowing that emerges, and this knowing is very organic, it’s very solid, very transformative. And this knowing is not anything that’s unfamiliar to people. I often give the example that if you, for instance, think about someone, a good friend or a family member, and you suddenly have them very much on your mind, and the phone rings, and you pick it up, and that’s the person on the other end of the phone. Or if you are in a grocery store, and you suddenly turn because you sort of feel like you’re being watched in your eyes meet someone who is just looking at you out of curiosity.

Francesca Mason Boring 18:32

So, we have all of these ways that we really are familiar with this kind of knowing, connectedness, that there is some way that we really have information about people around us, about folks that we’re connected to people that we care about. But what’s lovely is people that don’t know anything about us or know our family, actually can represent very accurately what particular dynamics are within that family system. So, there is this element of knowing and then we’re able to see the phrase that you used earlier, what is? We’re able to see what is the difference between what I believe or what I’ve constructed, and what is actually, what’s actually true, what is?

Francesca Mason Boring 19:23

For many people, that’s the point where there is a huge transformation. If I have believed something about family members for a long time, if I have a very conditioned history of a particular kind of family propaganda, where people tell a story about someone that made life easier, but that wasn’t really based in the truth, then there are times that I really that sense, again, of being able to breathe. It says though, that ability to know, is always present. So, if we have something in our family system that is not actually true, we don’t have necessarily a conscious knowing of that incongruity, but very often we will embody it, we feel tense, or we feel uncomfortable. There’s something that doesn’t flow.

Francesca Mason Boring 20:18

So, with family systems constellation, it really is lovely and that many people that have worked really hard, both providers and clients, who have worked really hard to try to unfold or unravel some point of confusion, all of those kind of cognitive methods, if they have sort of reached a dead end, and everyone is exhausted, then there’s something about this modality or this movement method, some people call it even a philosophy, this way of being able to see what is the hidden dynamic? What is it that we sort of have known in our body, but we were not able to conceptualize? And when that’s revealed in a constellation, for many people, it is incredibly transformative. It just is really lovely.

Francesca Mason Boring 21:14

And then, of course, it’s exciting that there are so many other disciplines that are emerging and understandings that are emerging right now, that again, somewhat market to those wisdom traditions. So, we have things like Quantum Physics and people who discuss and really investigate epigenetics, where we look at how is it that particular traumas in a family system, even activate genes that make us vulnerable to particular illnesses, and there are just so many places, morphogenetic fields that Rupert Sheldrake talks about. We’re really looking and seeing that there is this kind of connection that we have, that we have always had as human beings, that actually gives us access to a kind of healing, that doesn’t just come from being able to resolve things in a linear way.

Francesca Mason Boring 22:17

So. I don’t know if that’s the best description, I’m just so excited about how expansive and inclusive, and simple it is, that it really looks at who is in this family? And it says though, the family is so connected that one of the terms that folks use that that were a part of the family soul, that there really is this soul that says all of you are a part, all of you are a part of this family. And it doesn’t preclude or exclude, that people can have a variety of stories, that someone can have been adopted and loved, and cared for by someone else, other than their biological family, but the truth of the survival of this particular lineage is something that really does carry, apparently quite a bit with it in terms of field dynamics, biologically, emotionally, historically.

Francesca Mason Boring 23:21

So, this work actually looks at that, and particularly in the United States, when countries have immigration, when people are so separated because of the trauma of immigration or forced migration. When people are so separated from their lineage, this work really brings a sense of relief, and a remembering that everyone does come from someone, we really do have roots.

Candice Wu 23:49

It’s just such a sweet and appreciative practice, and even these simple words, we all do come from someone. It’s so loving, it just love. I love that you spoke about how simple it is, and who is here, who is in this family and who belongs here. And that makes so much sense that nature was calling you to just bring it into the fold, because it already is.

Francesca Mason Boring 24:26

Yeah.

Candice Wu 24:27

And yeah, and how does that, how do you see that showing up? Or when does it come in?

Francesca Mason Boring 24:34

Right. It shows up in so many ways. One of the things that I think is helpful is for me, and I think for a lot of people, it’s always been a source of information. So, in nature, for instance, there are animals in every species of nature, who, for whatever reason, may have the capacity to have a baby, but really do not have the impulse to take care of that infant or that newborn. And so, there are in lots of places in nature, the event where another animal who perhaps has had a child die, a foal die, or calf die, they actually will take care of someone else’s when that mother is, has died, or is not able.

Francesca Mason Boring 25:41

And so, when I would look at that, I would see that there’s no judgment involved. It really is. That’s what happens sometimes in nature, I think the same thing is true with human beings, that there are things that happen sometimes with people. And we have this element of judgment that does create this kind of secrecy or exclusion, or shame. But when we look at nature, there are so many things that just happen, and nature takes care of it, and so when it’s taken care of, it’s done. And there’s not all of the stigma or the paralysis that some people experience. So, one of the things I think that I find this a beautiful teacher is that the crippling element of judgment or shame is not embodied in many aspects of nature in the same way than it is with humankind. And so, I think that there’s a lot to learn by seeing that teacher, just that openness and that honoring life.

Francesca Mason Boring 26:52

And the other part is that, I think, perhaps informed by different indigenous traditions, I really do see nature as viable and interactive, and personal. So, it’s exciting that now, there are so many teachings that are also emerging in botany and other fields of biology, that really do point to this awareness, the trees talking with each other and interfacing with each other, even if it’s a biochemical conversation, rather than verbal conversation, that they actually are responding to each other and in contact. And I think that many indigenous traditions have this awareness of the capacity of nature to heal, not just in the aspect of many herbal practitioners who historically were in conversation with plants to see what would be helpful, but also the kind of like, and I can remember if it was Japanese, perhaps where they talk about tree bathing or nature bathing, saying that our bodies really respond differently when we are open to this kind of interface with nature.

Francesca Mason Boring 28:15

So, what’s lovely is in systems constellation, you’re able to actually introduce representatives for different elements of nature. So, if there is someone who has been severely traumatized, I remember one of the most touching experiences I ever had was someone who had really had so many horrific events in their lifetime, that I’ve seen some really masterful facilitators, they, this is too big for me. And, in fact, sometimes that’s what’s true. And somehow, there was this massive tree that came to my mind, and it was a tree that does exist, and it has been burned, it has been flooded, someone attempted to chop it down. Some folks may be aware of that tree, it’s on the coast, the western coast of the United States, but it just had been through so much, and it still has green coming out of it.

Francesca Mason Boring 29:22

So, in the constellation, we just placed a representative for this man and a representative for that tree. And that was the most heartful healing exchange, I think I’ve ever seen in my life, that this tree that has lived hundreds of years, has complete empathy, complete understanding, and could really teach something about resilience in a way that very few human beings could do. So, I think there are times that you can actually invite some element of nature into the family system or into the person’s own personal dynamic. And there’s just a capacity that is no human being lives several hundred years, but a tree can. So, yeah.

Candice Wu 30:15

I feel that now. I feel like the warmth and I almost feel sorrow, hearing that story. And I think we do, there’s something in us that knows that, you know, if we’re not having these experiences that really show us directly. In this way, there are other experiences where we feel that way, we feel some connection, and I love this. I don’t know how to describe it exactly. But just inviting this to be held in the space together, this man and this tree, there’s a bigger acknowledgment that allows a deeper, heartfelt experience, a deeper feeling, and the whole system, then the saying yes, nature has something to teach us. But to actually feel into it, and invite it like this, and that this happened. It’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing this story.

Francesca Mason Boring 31:18

Yeah, I felt so grateful, so grateful.

Candice Wu 31:22

It’s amazing. Oh, well, so Francesca, where are you now in your journey for yourself? And how constellations work has supported you or in your own walk?

Francesca Mason Boring 31:39

So beautiful. I feel really excited, I’m teaching a facilitator training, and have been doing those for some time, they’re 21 days, and it’s really wonderful that many of the people who have a really serious interest in being able to incorporate this into their work, whether they be teachers or even engineers, or people that are involved in architecture, or people that have a background in Shamanism, or psychotherapy or medicine of many, many different aspects, massage therapy, there are more and more people who are really wanting to be able to integrate constellation work into their own practice and into their own discipline.

Francesca Mason Boring 32:35

So, I feel very happy to be giving a training in Maryland. It’s just wonderful, the people that have come together, and then next year, I’ll give a training in Los Angeles. And it’s just a really exciting thing to know that each of the people who participate in that training, will be able to introduce family systems constellation and systemic thinking in a way that I never could, They’ll interface with people that I would never be able to share with or encounter. So, it really is expanding the reach of the work.

Francesca Mason Boring 33:14

I just finished a small book on family systems constellation. And it’s in the company of good people, and it’s just a small book, but part of my journey is that writing is something that really helps me to be able to integrate, and to be able to try to understand what I’m learning, what people are teaching me, what the work is teaching me. So, that book just came out, maybe a month or so ago, and that made me really happy. They always take their own time to come into the world, but that’s done, and it’s very sweet. I just sometimes books turn out to be something very different than what I expected. And I look at it and think, where did you come from?

Francesca Mason Boring 34:09

With this way, it’s just something really, really sweet. So, I felt really happy about that.

Candice Wu 34:15

Congratulations! It’s…

Francesca Mason Boring 34:18

Thank you.

Candice Wu 34:18

I saw that, it looks beautiful. And…

Francesca Mason Boring 34:20

Thank you so much.

Candice Wu 34:21

…..it does look very sweet.

Francesca Mason Boring 34:23

Yeah, it’s just a really, really nice feeling. But I think that one of the things, the primary seed was that I realized that many of the people who began family constellation work, predominantly folks from Germany and Europe, originally. But I realized how many of those people had been in long term partnerships. And also, how many of those people had been, dear friends, almost all in excess of 30 years. So, I thought this was a really a very unusual greenhouse. That folks that began this work were so committed to the difference that the depth, which with people could feel connectedness, to the people that they cared for.

Francesca Mason Boring 35:18

And I, as I was just kind of doing a meditation, one day, I realized that that greenhouse or that shared ability, that shared capacity for love and connection, not that they never had any conflicts, I’m sure, but just the ability for such a large group of people to really have this history and this capacity for connection is, I think, perhaps in large part, what really fostered their commitment, when they saw the way that this work could open doors for people and open hearts. They really, viscerally knew what can come from that. And so, that was kind of the springboard for the little book, but it just really came out of acknowledging the love that shows up, and that blossoms out of constellation work is just so expansive. But when I realized that the love between all of those people originally was in large part, part of the story of the gestation of that, that seed, I thought, this is really, I just want at least to say that I could see that.

Candice Wu 36:40

Mmmm.

Francesca Mason Boring 36:42

So sweet.

Candice Wu 36:43

I didn’t know that. Thank you for sharing that.

Francesca Mason Boring 36:45

Yeah, so sweet.

Candice Wu 36:46

Such a beautiful story. Yeah. Beautiful, knowing about all of those, all of the people that were that convicted in this depth of work.

Francesca Mason Boring 36:56

And then I think that the other part into terms of what’s happening is that I give workshops and a number of places, my focus, much of the time tends to be trainings, but I occasionally give workshops. And there again, I can see that the expanse, the variety of the disciplines of people who are interested in how this work can inform them and support them. Because I think that’s, I think many people who do really great work with other human beings are tired, they’re so exhausted, they’re so hurt, I guess you could say, by the inability for their toolkit to intervene in the way that their heart knows, is possible.

Francesca Mason Boring 37:59

And so, to have this wider prospect, that actually does seem to clear a lot of wounding that other modalities have not been able to clear for many is really heartening. And it also lightens their load, so that when folks realize how much support they have, and when they’re able to connect again with that and connect again with their own family and their own story, their own roots. It’s very strengthening. So, they, again, are reminded that they’re not alone, whatever they’re doing in the world, they do have support, they do have a lot of this huge legacy of other folks in their system who were able to really press on, make the grade, laugh. Because I think that’s one of the things that I enjoy, that for many people, there’s a kind of a lightness that is different than what they’ve been able to experience people. So, yeah, I feel really lucky.

Candice Wu 39:18

Yes, yes, me too. I feel that as you’re speaking it to, with people that I work with, that are experiencing it, and as you’re talking, I thought of something that was on your website. And it’s this, it says on your website, “Although Family Constellation may be therapeutic, this indigenous woman does not present it as therapy.” and that you described this method as one of the most profoundly beautiful healing paths that can be taken. And this work for you is the extension, an extension of ceremony, a road of indigenous healing. And somehow, as you’re speaking, this quote of yours came up in me and it kind of clicked, at least for me, I’m not sure if this is how you would represent it. But as you’re speaking about sharing this work, and how powerful it can be for anyone in any trade, who is doing something out there in the world, and being in community, being in family, or being in work, systems, that this work isn’t limited to the idea of therapy and healing, necessarily, that it can spread out into their lives as something so, is a way of being that supports them and the world around them.

Francesca Mason Boring 40:48

Absolutely. Well, and I think that one of the things, the integration, or the personification of that, as you so often referred to embodiment, and so, I love that so much because I think that that’s what fundamentally changes for so many people, that their sense of belonging and their sense of connectedness becomes really very embodied. So, in fact, they truly are transformed, they really do have just been physically, their presentation, I guess you would say, of being someone who belongs can be really quite visible.

Francesca Mason Boring 41:37

And so, that really has amazed me, what has amazed me is how much people can embody, what transforms in terms of their definition of who they are, and where they come from, and how much they represent resilience and capacity. And that is just so different, because we have so many modalities that are focused on pathology. And this really is looking at capacity. And so, when people are doing a constellation, they’re not looking at what is my disability, but rather, what is my capacity, and what are all the abilities of all of these people who came before me, that allowed this to happen. So, there really is a difference in that way.

Francesca Mason Boring 42:33

And the other part of it is that I feel really fortunate in that many of the workshops that I’ve given, I began in a very rural community. And so, the nature of the community really is such that people who were farmers or truck drivers, or teachers, or doctors, or single moms, a really wide variety of different backgrounds could come and really have the same depth of experience. So, one of the reasons I become so excited when many more people become interested in this work is that it really will continue to expand who has access to this. And I have really a strong sense that when it becomes part of everyone’s language, and every practitioner or caregiver or human service worker, or teacher or foster parent, when everyone has access to this, then…

Candice Wu 43:42

Absolutely.

Francesca Mason Boring 43:43

….then I think that’s going to be incredible. And that’s my hope. I don’t think it hurts to really dream big. But I do have the hope that that would happen.

Candice Wu 43:52

It’s a lovely dream.

Francesca Mason Boring 43:53

Yeah.

Candice Wu 43:54

It’s a beautiful dream.

Francesca Mason Boring 43:55

Yeah, I hope that it happens.

Candice Wu 43:58

Me, too.

Francesca Mason Boring 43:59

Me, too.

Francesca Mason Boring 44:02

That’s encouraging.

Francesca Mason Boring 44:04

That’s encouraging.

Candice Wu 44:05

Yeah, well, and it’s seeing ourselves with that capacity and the expanse of who we are beyond this body and being, beyond the lineage even, beyond what we can see. And when you spoke about the shaming and judgment that we place upon ourselves, that nature doesn’t, there, that really brings it to the forefront, that if we are in this way of being and way of walking in the world, and seeing, then how could we, how could we have sham?. And I also acknowledge that we could, but there’s something so pure about what the truth is underneath it, right? That there’s so much there, resilience and just being in who we are.

Francesca Mason Boring 44:54

That is so beautiful, and I think that’s perhaps the transformation that when we do walk outside in the trees, you can really have a sense that there is no judgment. And people began to really conceptualize and embody that sense of being a part of ancestry and having ancestors, then there’s also this perception that really, at that juncture, all that’s left is love, and we represent the survival of so many. And so, there really is no space where there would be judgment, it’s rather just this deep breath and this, that in some ways, we are the reward of everything that they endured, everything that they lived through, or lived with.

Francesca Mason Boring 45:54

And so, one of the things that seems to be really remarkable is that there is something about this multiple generations and being able to really include and to look at this expanse of lineage that really does bring to the fore, this sense that as far back as our lineage goes, there’s love that flows to us. And so, whether it’s a metaphor or whether it’s someone’s reality, it really does seem to have a transformative effect and seems to be something that people embody, when they’ve experienced a family constellation. So, it’s really, it’s really hopeful.

Candice Wu 46:45

It’s really powerful and its, that’s very expansive.

Francesca Mason Boring 46:50

So nice.

Candice Wu 46:51

Thank you. Yeah. And so in your personal journey, what are you tussling with? What are you feeling the learning about? Right now, I just recently had an experience with someone very close to me, that I could feel the convergence of our lineages coming together, through us. And, like white European family background, on the other side of me, and my Chinese American, having immigrated, my parents having immigrated, and there was this feeling of, can you hold my complexity, and it felt so ancestral related that my family came here to America, and wondered that and perhaps was wounded in a lot of ways or felt fear about that. And that was a great healing for me, where I converged with this person. And so, that’s alive in me now. And it’s so fitting, we’re having this conversation. So, I just wondered, if you would be open to sharing anything that you’re looking at.

Francesca Mason Boring 48:11

So beautiful. Well, I think that the conversation that you just spoke to, is definitely something that comes up in family constellation, and of course, it’s a part of my life. I have a very multicultural family. And so, in many respects seeing how others may be challenged in navigating that, is something that I’ve, perhaps that has always been one of my interests, because my mother is Shoshone, which is a Native American tribe and native speaker, and her family has been very involved in particularly historical aspects of tribe and still have a lot of different awareness of tribal practices and things like this. And I have a very large family. So, I’m one of seven children, my mother was one of 10 children. So, on that side of the family, there are quite a few people that I have as relatives.

Francesca Mason Boring 49:18

And then my father is Caucasian, and is descendant of immigrants from Lithuania, and also from Scotland and Ireland. So, the cultural differences were really extreme. But it was wonderful, because I could see that we really don’t all grow up with the same fairy tales. So, from very early on, I feel fortunate, and each of my parents, perhaps, because they were culturally so different, most of their friends were also bicultural. So, my growing up was kind of nurtured by this beautiful puzzle of seeing how different cultures could be and their beliefs and their practices. And so, always having really a care and caution to see what is permitted here, what is allowed here, what is comfortable for people here, because it can differ so much from place to place.

Francesca Mason Boring 50:28

So, I think that that’s, when you speak to that I can’t help but have a very strong resonance because that expansion of cultures has continued to expand and my family, so, we have, when I describe it, it just is it’s interesting learning. So, that we’re all careful of all of the different traditions of each of these people that come into our family.

Francesca Mason Boring 50:53

And for me, personally, my challenge in the moment has been that I really have had this very strong sense that I need to become comfortable or more aware of technology. And it’s actually very deep and very personal. I had a dear friend and coordinator, and colleague, Anatosh Fu, who was a facilitator, and she died last May. But we traveled for many years together, and she really saw an expanse in this work and also held this vision that in a perfect world, this will be accessible, easily accessible to everyone at some point. And so, literally on her deathbed, what she said was, “You have to get used to your cell phone, and you have to become friends with technology.” Literally, when people thought she does not have another breath left in her body, that was her last teaching for me. So…

Candice Wu 52:07

Fo you. Oh, my goodness.

Francesca Mason Boring 52:09

So I really…

Candice Wu 52:11

That was an important message.

Francesca Mason Boring 52:11

Yeah. So, I really held that, and then of all things this past winter, I did a really wonderful, I had a wonderful invitation from the Shift Network and did a Zoom conference, and had another lovely invitation from a woman by the name of Towel Shy, who has this wonderful soul movement. And again, that is Zoom, and now here we are on this podcast. And so, I’m really committed to learning all of these things that actually will make constellation work more available, more accessible, more known for as many people as possible. And so, it’s really a wonderful challenge, and it’s funny, I mean, I can’t help but a lot of times end up laughing because there are just so many different things involved. And I actually, it’s interesting, because I am trying to equate it with the complexity of nature, that really, nature is very complex. But when we really hold it just in its expanse, then it seems very contained.

Francesca Mason Boring 53:35

So, I’m trying to find a way that I can get my computer and this Zencastr and podcast, and Zoom and these different things that plug-in there and don’t plug-in here. I’m trying to see like, how do I hold them all in a way? You know that nature is. How do I begin to experience it, you know, as an organism or as energy? I think that that’s the thing that I’m really trying to find like how, how do I come to the place where I can say, you know, really this as everything and anything else is in service? And so how do I have? I think I’m trying to befriend it. But I’m waiting for the reciprocity where I have this actual visceral sense that it’s also embracing me.

Candice Wu 54:36

Yeah, yeah.

Francesca Mason Boring 54:37

So, that, you know, so that’s my challenge, and it’s, it’s really wonderful. I’ve just discovered people as teachers, that I would not have perceived as being that patient or specific. It’s been really a big challenge and adventure. And it is, I think, it happens in life a lot of times that there’s someplace where there’s an open door. And so, does one just look at it, or how do we navigate it? Do we go in the door with someone else? So I’m just kind of negotiating that and seeing that somehow this has become part of my journey, and it’s so unlikely. But…

Candice Wu 55:29

Wow!

Francesca Mason Boring 55:30

….but such an adventure.

Candice Wu 55:31

Yeah, and you’re here.

Francesca Mason Boring 55:33

Yeah.

Candice Wu 55:33

Yeah. True, true confessions into context. Yeah, and I just had this dream that, is there a constellation waiting for you with technology being representative?

Francesca Mason Boring 55:48

You know, I really, I could see that, and I could also see that there’s this loving element to it. Because the end result and the encounters that I’m having are a surprise, really just a beautiful, transformative surprise. So, what that means in terms of my own capacity, I don’t know, but just this the sense of it, the experience of it is really unexpected. Unexpected because I was just really so in the dark, but little by little, so yeah, it’s interesting that it could be such a challenge.

Candice Wu 56:33

Beautiful. I don’t think you’re alone in that challenge. I think that’s, but to give it that honoring is really something.

Francesca Mason Boring 56:43

Yeah, yeah.

Candice Wu 56:45

Thank you.

Candice Wu 56:46

So beautiful.

Candice Wu 56:49

Well, we’re coming to the end.

Francesca Mason Boring 56:52

Yeah, I feel really good.

Candice Wu 56:54

Yeah. You feel really good?

Francesca Mason Boring 56:56

Yeah, that we actually did…

Candice Wu 56:58

I, me, too.

Francesca Mason Boring 57:00

So really so sweet.

Candice Wu 57:02

Me, too.

Francesca Mason Boring 57:03

So sweet.

Candice Wu 57:04

It is, I…

Francesca Mason Boring 57:05

Thank you so much.

Candice Wu 57:06

…so enjoyed this conversation and hearing your voice and hearing your wisdom come through. And there’s a resonance that when you said, energetic, that technology is energetic, I feel that and I also feel the transmission of your energy across the vessel of technology here. And I’m so glad, I thank you for sharing with me and with everyone that’s listening in going to be listening here. It’s such a gift.

Francesca Mason Boring 57:38

Well, thank you so much. And actually, I’m gonna really hold that word vessel because I think that’s, that is so helpful, because the work and the technology, the way that we’re moving in life, it really is like some kind of vessel like a big canoe or boat that somehow is really taking us in this really beautiful stream that holds us. And because I do think that nature is alive and conscious, I think that the water that’s carrying us is carrying us well, with good intention, and a lot of love.

Candice Wu 58:23

Thank you for that.

Francesca Mason Boring 58:24

Thank you, Candice.

Candice Wu 58:26

Oh, you’re so welcome, and is there anything else you want to share today before we close?

Francesca Mason Boring 58:32

Oh, just thanks and gratitude for your work. And yeah, just the hope of eventually, everyone is able to experience family systems constellation or one of the many beautiful applications of constellation work. It’s becoming more and more accessible, and I think when folks just google family constellation, there are lots of places where you can find workshops or groups of club center coming together exploring. And now, there are so many wonderful books, I really appreciate how many books are available, and I love reading. There are just a lot of beautiful books.

Francesca Mason Boring 59:16

So, if I maybe could leave people with, I mean, definitely my books, you can just put Francesca Mason Boring, and go to Amazon, and there’s a list of books but there are a couple of other books that I think there are so many. But there’s one that I think is really lovely, that sort of holds the essence, and it’s a book by Bert Hellinger, and it’s called No Waves without the Ocean. And I think there are so many, that if I were just to say which ones have I loved, I really could talk for a long time. But in terms of self, that really has the essence and it’s just a lovely, lovely book. No Waves without the Ocean by Bert Hellinger is really, really beautiful. So, that might be something.

Candice Wu 1:00:13

That’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing. Yeah. And where can people find you and your workshops? And you mentioned your books on Amazon, but I think they’re also connected on your website?

Francesca Mason Boring 1:00:26

Yes, yes, yeah. And it’s just AllMyRelationsConstellations.com, and relations and constellations are both plural. So, it’s just AllMyRelationsConstellations.com. And there, I have my workshops. There are also some nice resources for people. There’s a place where folks can get books that are about constellation work, not just mine, but books about constellation work. And then there’s a really nice link that actually is great for people in the US who may have family overseas, there’s a link to something that’s called Talent Manager.

Francesca Mason Boring 1:01:13

And that’s something that a gentleman has just given as a gift. He’s been kind of pulling this together for many years, and there are links for many countries in the world that tell you where you may be able to find a facilitator of family constellation. So, that’s one of the links that’s also provided on my website.

Candice Wu 1:01:38

Wonderful.

Francesca Mason Boring 1:01:39

So, that if someone has been to a constellation and they have family in Spain, or they have family in Mexico, they can pop that up and see who might be there for the rest of their family or friends that they have that are in other countries.

Candice Wu 1:01:54

Beautiful. What a good resource.

Francesca Mason Boring 1:01:56

Yeah. So nice. And keeps growing. So, that’s really beautiful.

Candice Wu 1:02:02

Yeah. Wonderful, Francesca, thank you so much. I’m just in deep gratitude of you sharing and being here today and being out in the world and walking the way you do. Thank you so much.

Francesca Mason Boring 1:02:18

Thank you, Candice, this is really been a joy. And thank you for your support in helping me navigate just the mechanics of being able to have this exchange. My heart has really felt good about the time that we got to have.

Candice Wu 1:02:35

Wonderful.

Francesca Mason Boring 1:02:36

So, Thank you.

Candice Wu 1:02:37

Thank you.

Candice Wu 1:02:40

It’s been such a pleasure to have Francesca on the show. I just loved talking with her and hope that you enjoyed listening just as much. Tune in to, check out her meditations that she’s offered in her piece of writing of family constellation and the legacy of the natural world supporting resilience. You can find that PDF file on the website at CandiceWu.com/francesca.

Candice Wu 1:03:06

So, as we close today, I just like to end with the idea that the ability to know is always present. This is Francesca’s quote, and it’s just so poignant because there are so many different ways of knowing, it’s not just a mental knowing that we’re after. We want to know who we are in our bodies, want to know the next step of our lives. We want to know what’s happened inside of ourselves when we feel a certain emotion, and this reminder that the ability to know is always present is so powerful because, with love, gentleness, and patience, we can see what’s there for us, we can receive the answers from within.

Candice Wu 1:03:51

Thank you so much for joining us today. It’s been such a pleasure. If you’d like to connect in with other podcasts or other guests, and experientials and meditations, you can find all that at CandiceWu.com/podcast. And you can also sign up for the bi-monthly newsletter where you’ll get updates about the podcast, updates about events, also, my travels and self-love notes. Find that at CandiceWu.com/embody.

Candice Wu 1:04:22

It’s been great to have you today, and I look forward to seeing you next time on the Embody Podcast.