Candice Wu 0:00
This episode is about how to sort out your inner dialogue and explore the many parts of yourself so you can feel clarity, heal the wounded parts of you, know what part of yourself is talking or engaged in various moments, lead yourself with intention, and love and embrace all of yourself.

Candice Wu 0:21
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
There is no sponsorship message today. But I do want to share a new dream class that I created which is on Skillshare. This is one of my passions is to explore dreams I love, love dream work. And speaking about parts work today is actually really connected with dream work because, in a dream, it's as if every part of the dream is you. And we can see the different parts of the dream as parts of yourself revealing to you, the parts of yourself.

Candice Wu 1:30
And so I created a dream class on how to remember your dreams, the basics about how to prepare yourself, create intentions around it and the tools you'll need, as well as the key factor to remember your dream when you wake up.

Candice Wu 1:47
This is the first class in a series of many that will dive into the juicy parts of dream work which is embodying the energy and the gifts and wisdom that a dream brings you so that you can bring that into your life and feel even more whole. You can find this first class that's about 35 minutes long on Skillshare at Kennedy School.com/dreamclass1, the number one, right now this classes offered for free, I'd love for you to just get a taste of it. And please leave me a review and share your feedback about what you thought about the class and that helps to also share that work with other people who are looking for a class about remembering their dreams.

Candice Wu 2:32
If you sign up through the link that I'm sharing with you today, CandiceWu.com/dreamclass1, you can also get two months free of the premium subscription. I think that after two months, it's about $10 to access a wide variety of classes and offerings that are on Skillshare.

Candice Wu 2:53
So hello everyone, welcome back. It's great to have you here today. It is December 24th for many of you. It's a holiday and perhaps you're with family or friends, perhaps you're off on your own. Whatever is happening with you, I know that holidays can bring up a lot inside. Right now I'm in Germany, spending some time with my partner's family and him. And it is interesting, I haven't been home to Michigan with my family for the holiday time in maybe three or four years, it's been some time. I've spent a lot of my Christmas times with my family in Hong Kong, especially since my grandma was near the end of her life. And last year she passed away. So it's a bit of a shift for me here to be in Germany.

Candice Wu 3:42
How have you all been feeling as the holidays are here as the new year starts to come around the corner? For me, I've been having some interesting experiences on the surface emotionally. I'm just very grounded and calm, almost blank, almost boring. And then I'll go to sleep and have these marvelous dreams.

Candice Wu 4:09
And just my dream life is like wild. And it feels like a lot of the inner stuff that I've been working on for the last 12 years, maybe 10 years at least is just clearing out and making its way through and my waking life is just like calm as can be. However, having said that, this morning I did wake up with a bit of an experience, which is not uncommon in the last couple of weeks, where I'll just wake up with this vague feeling of fear.

Candice Wu 4:43
And if I take myself a little bit seriously, which what I mean is just to slow down with myself and notice what that is, and not just dismiss it not just pretend it's not happening. Well, if I do, and sometimes I do, it just continuous much longer. But if I slow down with it, then I can find out a lot more about myself and heal something that's trying to make its way to the surface.

Candice Wu 5:12
And that's really what I experienced often when we are having emotions that are coming up that don't seem to totally feel in proportion to what's going on in our current life, or what's happening as we know it consciously. It seems that something in us is making its way to the top so we can heal and release it. It is if we have even more capacity in ourselves to look at something that wants to heal, something that wants to show us another piece of ourselves.

Candice Wu 5:48
So moving right into the parts work and dialoguing with the many parts of ourselves, I want to share with you what I experienced this morning. This is like fresh off the press. Not that my life is like broadcast-worthy. But apparently, it is now on this show. But I wanted to share this as an example of how you might use parts of work if you're not already, or to just give you some more to boost what you're already doing.

Candice Wu 6:38
When I woke up this morning, I felt this feeling of a little bit of dread, a bit of fear. And I thought okay, well I can easily dismiss this. But let me just feel into it. So as I felt into it and felt the emotion of it, felt into the sensation in my body and just asked out loud, who's talking? Who is feeling this fear in me? And what I did, I just let my imagination open up, let my awareness open, my heart open. And what showed up was a teenage part of me, was the between the ages of 14 and actually 21. So a little bit older than teenage as well.

Candice Wu 7:07
And I just sat with this part of me and wondered what is scary, and it just immediately clicked and I think the many years of me doing work with parts of myself and younger parts, the inner child, all of that really helped me to be able to just feel into what's going on pretty quickly. So if you're not there don't feel bad, it just takes some time. This all didn't really quite make sense for me for many years. I think, in the beginning when I was working with an EMDR therapist, and doing parts work for a couple of years, it still felt hard to navigate. I didn't really know what I was doing or where to go next. But now it feels like second nature. It's how I take care of myself. That's how I love myself and relate to these many different parts of me, past, present, and future.

Candice Wu 8:04
So I'm talking to my teenage self and witnessing how she did life so alone, in a lot of ways. I had many friends growing up. I had good friends in high school and college. But as for the big decisions in life, I felt like I was doing it all by myself.

Candice Wu 8:23
My parents are immigrants. And so they didn't really have that much knowledge to navigate the American worlds of universities and career choices. My dad was an engineer, and he had gone to U of M, University of Michigan. He was very busy at his work and he just didn't really know how to mentor me in these spaces.

Candice Wu 8:48
So I made a lot of career and life choices on my own. And, well, looking back, there were a few mentors here and there. But I really needed someone close to me. So the feeling was that it was quite scary to do this all by myself. And as I looked at all the decisions I made, I felt quite proud of myself, I felt like I made those decisions and I did Okay. So that was very healing, feeling into that side of things, what I had done right, and what I've stepped into. Even though I didn't have what I needed. And looking back, I remember not feeling fear at all. I just did it. I just plowed through. And that's the kind of plowing through overriding, moving forward, that is part of my survival mode, where I just keep going and I don't feel the fear because it's actually not safe to feel the fear.

Candice Wu 9:51
So it makes a lot of sense to me that I'm feeling that fear right now. Because in the past, I couldn't feel it. And where in other situations prior to having done so much healing work, I might have identified with that fear and just applied it to my now situation and kind of gotten in a slump of depression, which is very reminiscent of the past.

Candice Wu 10:17
This experience of just pinpointing who's talking, and giving that part of myself what it needs. This part of me needed to feel like she wasn't alone anymore. So I let her know that I was always going to be there for her, and that she's no longer alone. And I, being an older, wiser, more resourced part of myself, the future self, the future, Candice. And that felt quite comforting to this part of me as I imagined and connected with my inner teenager. And she just needed to have that update and to be reminded of all the way that she did it right. And to feel through the fear and the aloneness. And to be reminded that that's not exactly the way it is now.

Candice Wu 11:14
So the fear passed and a lot of grief move through, it's almost all the way through. But at this point, it doesn't require much tending to, it's just making its way through my body. And it can feel things in my body kind of recalibrating. There was a big shift of sensation in my body, heat, warmth. And now there's just a more open space, I feel clearer. I feel like my breath is deeper again. And there are just some different movements happening inside, energetically.

Candice Wu 12:01
So what I'm describing to you is the process of connecting with some vague fear I had asking myself who is this tuning into the part of me that needs something. Giving myself what this part needs and building that relationship even further with my younger self. And then the physical and energetic emotional changes that happen as a part of the healing process. And coming out on that other side feeling even more grounded in myself. And knowing myself even more. It's quite a gift to be able to honor a younger part of myself, that didn't get what she needed. And to know that pain that I experienced, in a fuller and deeper way, just gives me so much more depth to myself now.

Candice Wu 12:50
So let's dive into parts work and explore this together.

Candice Wu 12:54
Parts work comes from and connects with as well as overlaps with many different traditions. It can be used in so many different ways. There's IFS which is internal family systems, which is looking at who is this internal inner family that is engaging with one another? What are the many different parts of me that create this inside family? That is my psyche.

Candice Wu 13:24
There's also voice dialogue which has resonated with me very much and it's similar to IFS, where we're looking at what are the parts of me? Which part of me is speaking or leading the way? And, how do I become aware of these parts and their dynamics so that I'm so aware that I can choose and be intentional about which part of me is leading?

Candice Wu 13:51
Other people call it parts work very basically, or soul-work and working with pieces of the soul. Shamanism works with that in particular. And whatever it is called, the method of working with it might be a little bit different, or the different clinician or healer working with it has a different spin on it. And the way that I like to work with it is to bring in the body, of course, the embodiment piece of how is it to experience this part of yourself? Whether you're stepping into that one part, or you're communicating with that one part? What's the felt sense? How are the emotions? What's happening, what wants to happen in the body? How is the body holding this experience? And how can we bring healing, what's needed? So it's really about opening the heart and the body, and allowing the healing to come from a heart space, from a place of love and basic emotional needs, which is what I find a lot of our inner wounds need.

Candice Wu 14:57
We have many different parts of ourselves that are talking and coming into play at different times. These are subpersonalities, part of our subconscious, some are more in our awareness, and other parts. And it's not that we have dissociative identity disorder, or some people in the past might have called it multiple personality. It doesn't signify that you have a disorder or a pathology, if you are noticing the many parts of you. It's actually an incredible thing that can help you find clarity about yourself, and also bring healing to the parts of you that may have gotten stuck in time, or stuck in a certain place of development, or soul parts that have gotten stuck in different lives.

Candice Wu 15:44
It's quite a resource to notice that my inner critic is really strong. And it just comes online when whenever I'm approaching a new situation. Or if I'm going to have a fun experience, my inner critic tells me that I shouldn't, and how I'm such a bad person for even wanting that. So it's helpful for us to notice what ways we're talking to ourselves. And very specifically, what part of ourselves is doing that talking. Because then, as we get to know that one part of us, that voice that comes in every time this or that happens, then we can bring some healing to that one part. Because it's certainly not all of you to be able to notice the complexities of who we are, the parts of ourselves that are coming in, the parts of ourselves that get hidden or don't get a chance to voice or speak up or stand up.

Candice Wu 16:44
The many different emotions that we may have at one time. All of that shows the complexity and the beauty of us as human and also is incredibly empowering. Because you're not just one thing at one time, you're many things. And it gives that awareness so that you can choose who you want to be, and heal the parts of you and embrace more of yourself, you can understand that your inner critic was some part of you that had to learn how to be really harsh, because someone else on the outside was harsh, or it was protecting you in a certain way. And so instead of just trying to kill that voice inside, trying to change the words that you say to yourself, which is sometimes helpful. If it's not, what do you do, and this is one solution. If it's not helpful to just change the words, then let's look at why those words are so strongly there.

Candice Wu 17:43
So when we have parts of ourselves that are extremely rigid or strongly there, and very, I don't know, perhaps causing sabotage or pain inside, tension, then that might be a clue to us that there's been some wounding that this part of us, that who we are inside wants us to look at so we can heal.

Candice Wu 18:11
So if you've seen the movie Inside Out, that's sort of a primer to the inner world. I feel that our inner world is much more complex than just defining it by different emotions. In Inside Out, there was a girl and you could see her inner parts working. And those inner parts included sadness, joy, anger, etc. And what I find is more of that these different parts of ourselves, all have a variety of emotions, some may feel more anxious than others, or we may track down and get to know a certain part of ourselves by the fact that the fear comes up.

Candice Wu 18:56
And so what is a part of us that has that fear. So it's not just defined by emotions to delineate our inner parts. The personality of each of our parts can elicit a variety of emotions. So think about a situation where you seem to get triggered in the same way or the same thing repeats itself and you get reactive, and somehow, you deal with it the same way or you reacted the same way. That part of you may be a certain aspect of your inner self. And if we explore what that part of you desires, what the agenda of this part of you is, what the wounds are, how they're feeling right now, what they need, we can really open up a whole world of a part of you, that can be reclaimed, and embraced and healed.

Candice Wu 19:57
If it's needing healing or incorporated into your daily life, if that's empowering, or maybe another part of you can support this part of you that's hurting.

Candice Wu 20:10
So for me, one of the easiest ways to work with my inner parts is to see what age this part of me is. And first of all, is it me? Or is it someone else and energy of someone else, or the voice of someone else?

Candice Wu 20:27
If it is me, and it has a distinct age or a sense of an age, just checking to see if there's some impression of how old or young this part is, can really give a lot of information.

Candice Wu 20:39
As I was talking about my teenage self, that teenage self is extremely different from my two-year-old self, who needs a lot more regulation, support, love. And a two-year-old self developmentally is going through a completely different experience. Well, I guess that's arguable, than a teenager. But if you know anything about developmental psychology or child development, we know that two-year-olds want to assert themselves in a very strong way. They want to know Yes and No, they want to be able to speak, and move, and feel free. But also they want what they want when they want it and can feel very upset if they're not getting what they want and what they need.

Candice Wu 21:28
And so I guess that isn't very different from teenagers but it comes with a different flavor. And it comes from a different developmental place because if that two-year-old gets supported in a way that's empathetic, attuned, loving, yet clear in terms of boundaries, then my teenage self might have been way better off.

Candice Wu 21:51
So all this to say that the different inner child parts of us might have a different set of experiences, given what age we are, and what happened around that age, what life was like at that time, and what we needed and didn't get or what we experienced. And not just the challenging things, but the joyful things, what was it good things in life at each time period. Other inner parts might be past life parts, our inner critic, the part of us that just gets so mean to ourselves, as I mentioned earlier, the protector, the part of us that wants to protect us from any harm, whether that's emotional, spiritual, or physical, or dominant, or submissive parts, the wise parts of us, the inner divine or inner sage, higher self.

Candice Wu 22:45
The parts of us that are like a teacher or coach, if that's a part of you that shows up in your life. If you have a career and you have different skills that you're using that career, perhaps that's a part of yourself that comes through the leader in you. Also, there's a part of us that is our mother, or is our father or some other ancestor or friend, that we experience the energy of this person through us. And we have an aspect of ourselves that is like that person or can tune into the energy of that person, yet that aspect is part of us as well.

Candice Wu 23:26
So when we say that everyone is a mirror of ourselves, this really sheds light on how that is exactly. So if we're talking to the mother in you, specifically, or your own mother, if you close your eyes and picture your mother and talk to her, there may be an experience of how she might respond to you, talk to you, feel towards you, and how you might feel towards her. And in a lot of ways we work with family constellations in that way by visualizing. But we can also tune into our ideal parents, our ideal father, our ideal ancestry in terms of the soul of them, the love in them, or some part of a person that you'd really like to experience to support you.

Candice Wu 24:21
Sometimes when I work with a part of me, it turns out to be that it feels like it's a blob of energy, or it's some creature of some sort or an animal. So it's helpful to be completely curious and open about what a certain part of you may look like, or be like, so that you can learn more about it and see how to interact with it, how it can be best incorporated and integrated into your psyche.

Candice Wu 24:54
We can't exactly get rid of parts of us. Sometimes parts are ready to leave or release and that usually is best done without force or resistance, but in really, truly seeing what that part needs to be released. Or if it's ready to go, if there's anything it needs before it goes. So that it's a true release, and not just a pushing away of an aspect of yourself. And what I find is that when we push a part of ourselves down or away, that part can feel abandoned. And if you've ever felt abandoned in your life, it could be a repeat, instead of you experiencing the abandonment from outside, it then becomes an inner abandonment of an aspect of yourself that really wants to be seen, honored, and appreciated.

Candice Wu 25:51
And a lot of times we do abandon younger parts of ourselves that we had to put aside in order to survive, where we weren't able to feel through a certain pain or fear, or something that happened in the past, and push that part down or pushed that energy down maybe. And we're used to that. So we can still leave some of our inner parts abandoned or dismissed, were be reading them or for the plethora of ways that we were treated when we were younger. So you can see how the outer world and the inner world all of that is an iteration or repetition or fractal of the same way of being that can repeat in your life. All of it stemming to a belief set that you might have, that perhaps you came in with or picked up along the way. And these parts of ourselves usually want the best for us, when we ask them. What they desire for us, it's usually in some way for us to succeed, to be protected, to be okay, to be safe. We get down to and distill to the very basic of what the purpose of how they're behaving us.

Candice Wu 27:15
So as I said, each part of ourselves has an agenda. It has perhaps a sense of age or timeliness. It has a whole set of knowledge, perhaps even a physiology. So if we tuned into your inner critic, maybe that part is very tense.

Candice Wu 27:37
If we tune into your five-year-old self, maybe that part is very free and joyful, or perhaps it's curled up in a ball and needing a lot of attention.

Candice Wu 27:48
So the body can carry the shape of that energy if we tuned specifically to one part. So what's just so fun to do is explore the inner workings of how all of these different parts of you engage, how do they talk to one another? Different parts might communicate differently with other parts, and differently with other parts. Do some parts push another part down? Or are some parts think like teammates and work together, their partners in crime, or they really work together while they push out another part of you?

Candice Wu 28:29
Is there a part of you that protects your younger self or a part of you that chimes in when your inner critic chimes in. So a lot of times our inner critic can connect up with our achiever, the part of us that really wants to achieve a lot and do well and perhaps is driven by feeling not enough. And when that part comes online, maybe the inner critic gets a little mean about things, when things are not going right or what you're trying something for the first time or performing something, etc.

Candice Wu 29:06
Maybe the achiever also connects up with the part of you that pushes and drives you forward and does it like white knuckling it. And so perhaps those three inner critics, achiever, and pusher really become this challenging force inside and all the while the other parts of you are feeling berated and hurt and plowed over.

Candice Wu 29:33
So how is everyone inside? How is the whole team doing and who's included and who's not. And when I've experienced in myself or with my clients that every part of the system is acknowledged in some way or has its place just like in family constellations, there's a sense of peace.

Candice Wu 30:00
Everyone can be supported and utilized in a way that is helpful to the whole being. And that's similar in any team. If you think about a work team, we want everyone to feel that they're valued, supported, included, and an important part of things, no matter what their role is, whether that's down to the person cleaning the bathrooms to the head person that is the leader of the team.

Candice Wu 30:31
So our inner world is similar, we want every part of us to feel engaged in the right ways, and in the right times, and loved, and having their place.

Candice Wu 30:45
So a couple of weeks ago, I had the feeling life is so hard, like, I just woke up in the morning feeling like, I just can't do life, I just don't know. And this is not an unfamiliar feeling to me. I've worked with this feeling a lot and it's connected up with many of my younger parts. The parts of me that did have a really hard time in younger life where I had to experience a lot of things that were uncomfortable, traumatic, as well as deal with all the emotions by myself. And my main way to deal with it was to numb it out because it was way too overwhelming.

Candice Wu 31:26
But I hadn't had this feeling in a while that life is so hard. And at different times, if I'm nervous about something, it can trigger that feeling that life is so hard, but it really is just a bit of nerves around something that I'm experiencing or approaching. But, with this particular feeling, again, I felt like okay, let's just look at what is this. And as I did, it connected up with not just my younger self, but also a younger part of my grandpa.

Candice Wu 32:03
My paternal grandpa was adopted when he was around five years old. And this story that as I've heard it from one person in my family was that he was given away for money. And this is of course not talked about in my family. And so because it was probably such a painful and maybe shameful experience. Well later, I found out that my great grandmother had passed away, his mother. And that my great grandfather had probably been overwhelmed. It didn't know what to do. And perhaps didn't have enough money. I don't know what happened to my grandpa's siblings, but my grandpa was given to someone else, in exchange for money. And then eventually my great grandmother that I knew in my life, that was the adopted Great Grandma was the one that took him in.

Candice Wu 32:54
So as I opened up, the feeling of life is so hard and felt into it. I also asked myself, what's the context for this? Is this me? Is this my younger self? And partially felt like yes, and partially felt like, it's not all mine. And that's exactly right, because what came up was the energy of my grandpa, the feelings that he couldn't hold, that life is so hard, terrifying, dreadful perhaps, scary and upsetting.

Candice Wu 33:27
All of those feelings, as well as of grief and loss and pain. I don't think he could very much hold for himself, given all that happened, and how I'm holding it now. And as I imagined my grandpa, in that experience, and just felt into some compassion for what he may have experienced, it was releasing in me. And not only that my younger self didn't have to hold the pain of my grandpa, and my great grandparents, but also the repeated feelings in me that life is so hard, the same feelings that I went through when I was younger.

Candice Wu 34:09
So I want to talk briefly about how we can use parts work in relationships. It's extremely helpful, when you're triggered in an intimate relationship or a family relationship, when there's an upset between you or a conflict, it's really helpful for me, at least to be able to notice what part of me got triggered, and perhaps, open up what part of the other person got triggered. And if they can speak the same language, then even better, because it's like, oh, yeah, my six-year-old self is talking to your 15-year-old self. Hmm, don't think we're going to solve any problems here this way and no wonder we're both reactive in our specific ways. Or maybe someone's younger self, child self is talking to my child self, who turned into a parent early on, and knows how to be a mother, which is an interesting paradox being both child and mother.

Candice Wu 35:10
But that's the part that gets activated in me sometimes when I'm in relationship. If someone else is really needing someone and wanting someone to guide their way. Sometimes that part of me the younger part that wants to please them so that I can get love turns into a motherly figure, to take care of the other person, so that I can get what I need, and the other person get what they need.

Candice Wu 35:38
And so I don't really like to lead from these parts. I don't really like to be in an intimate relationship with those parts of guiding the way and interacting the most. It's not really fun to be someone's mother, when you're not. So you might take a little look at your own relationships, and where there's some conflict or where there's any place where you get activated or upset or anxious.

Candice Wu 36:09
And check out what part of you is having that response. And then, if you slow it down, even more, what part of you, or what parts of you come online afterward, lot of times a younger part of us gets activated, especially in relationship, or especially in experiences where there's authority in relationship, like a boss or supervisor. Or when we're in groups. And if our child part gets activated, then perhaps another part of us comes online to protect that part from having to be felt. So if the child part gets activated with some hurt, maybe it happens so quickly that the critic in us comes and says, nope, you can't feel that. We don't have feelings like that. You're not allowed to feel that. And maybe not quite so literally, but swoops in and does something to distract or is mean to you so that you can move forward or beats you up a little and says, you just have to plow through or whatever it is. And then maybe another part says, oh, well, maybe we don't have to be so hard on ourselves. And all these different voices start to tangle up.

Candice Wu 37:32
One easy way to spot different parts of you getting conflicted or having a conversation, is when you are making a decision that you're not so sure about, that you have some ambivalence about. And there are two sides to the story or many things to consider. And yet, one part of you really wants this and another part of you says no, I don't think so because of X, Y, and Z. And then you kind of just go back and forth in your head and it all gets mixed up and you can't really make a decision because both the pros and the cons and the pros from either side of the story seem worthy. And where do you go from here?

Candice Wu 38:16
And sometimes it's just so overwhelming that perhaps our nervous system just shuts down a bit and we get paralyzed. We don't know how to make that choice. And so maybe we don't make a choice. Or we just get stuck in that internal chatter and argument back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth. Considering what we should do. Should we do this? Should we not? We shouldn't? Yes, we should. Yes, we should know. And it just goes back and forth.

Candice Wu 38:44
We found that if you sort out those voices, well, who's the one saying that it's a good idea. And why? And we interview them a bit, get to know their full story, what that parts thoughts are, and all the reasons why they think it's a good or bad idea and hear this side out. In fact, you can even sit in two chairs or three chairs, however many parts you're sensing, and sit in one chair and talk from that part, then move to another and have a rebuttal, etc, and just duke it out. But here each part out.

Candice Wu 39:24
That's called the empty chair technique actually. And that's something that's often done in Gestalt therapy, or other psychodynamic therapies even. And, that's where parts work overlaps, we can see that many traditions are using this and a lot of different ways.

Candice Wu 39:42
Really fun thing to do if you do, set out two chairs for two different parts of you that are arguing back and forth, is that when you sit in one side, and let that side habit say, don't just talk, but allow it to come from within, allow it to come from the feeling of it, and feel the depth of what's going on in your body. Notice how the body is held. Notice if there's an emotion, or a way the body feels, or has sensation in some place. Or maybe there's tension in one area or a couple, just see what it is to be like in the body from this one part, which is how I'd like to use voice dialogue or dialoguing with a part.

Candice Wu 40:29
I often talk to that part of my clients. So I asked, can I speak to the inner protector in you? And I asked them to move to a different place in the room and however that part wants to show up, is quite interesting. Maybe they're on the ground lying down and eyes closed, which for a protector that can be a challenging way to protect someone. And maybe that person feels very vulnerable and unprotected in themselves, unsafe.

Candice Wu 41:02
I've seen a protector show up standing and hovering over another part with fists at their hips and elbows sticking out like with a strong pose. And looking down on the other part with some disgust or disdain.

Candice Wu 41:23
So we can see from our physiology, when a part shows up or when we step into a part, what the dynamic is going on inside. And it really illuminates this inner dynamic, so that you can have more awareness. And what I find is, the more awareness we have about the different parts of us and how they're interacting, the more we just acknowledge it, see it, feel it, honor it, honor where it came from, or how this pattern started and be gentle with it.

Candice Wu 42:03
The more that we have distance from it, we're able to have flexibility then because we see more. And we're not so limited by that part because we have more awareness, it's released some of its hold, its power, and grip on us. And we have new flexibility to shift into a different part of us because we see more, we see how we've been. And when that happens when that awareness happens, it just gradually loses its rigidity. And we de-identify even more or some healing happens.

Candice Wu 42:45
So the most powerful thing that's happened with some of this work is that people feel wow, I understand myself. And now I can choose with more intention, what part of myself I want to be. And I know how to take care of these other parts of me. And I don't have to depend on my parents the way I used to, I can give love to my inner child or I can heal the parts of me that have been wounded from a past relationship, even though that relationship is long and dead.

Candice Wu 43:23
So it's a beautiful thing. I love it, it's so much fun, and for especially people who want to analyze everything and want to talk everything through, this moving into a different place and speaking from that voice, or sitting and picturing and visualizing, what part is talking and connecting with that part as if it's a separate part. That has been incredibly helpful to build not only awareness, but also to help shift and heal the nervous system so that there's a new baseline of relaxation and safety inside.

Candice Wu 44:03
We can find parts of ourselves that have been hidden away, abandoned, shut down, or even killed. And so those parts, when they come back alive, can make us feel even fuller. We can find parts of ourselves that are incredibly joyful and are essential to who we are. And when those parts are shut up or abandoned, we don't feel like ourselves.

Candice Wu 44:33
We feel quite stifled or lost. We use that word a lot, he feels lost. And perhaps that's a part of you that's lost, who's lost? What part of you is lost?

Candice Wu 44:47
And as I spoke about my story with my great grandparents and my grandpa, holding the energy of my grandpa, a lot of times, it can be a part of ourselves that has felt lost or whatever feeling we're feeling. But it also can link up with someone in our ancestry whose story was never told, whose story was lost, or whose life was lost.

Candice Wu 45:13
And it can even connect up with past life. If that's a part of your understanding or resonates with you, then it might be helpful to feel into, is this part of a past life? Or is it part of this life? What part of me is this?

Candice Wu 45:29
So a fun activity that you can do with yourself is to just take any scenario that you notice you have been activated or reactive. And to start to slow it down, picture the whole conversation again, or the interaction and just see what part of me is turned on there, what part of me was reacting. And you can even play it all out again and notice how it feels in your body and start to ask with gentleness and with the sort of listening heart space rather than an analyzing space. We don't want to keep it all in the head and the mind. We want to bring it down to an experiential place where it involves the whole body is that's where the transformation happens. That's where the depth of emotion can be felt and released. And that's where things can really shift inside.

Candice Wu 46:32
So asking yourself out of a scenario, who was that or what parts were that, and you can name them anything you want to. I use certain names during this podcast, and IFS and voice dialogue. There are different titles for more common parts like our inner critic or protector, the inner child, our wounded child, the magical child, our dominant part.

Candice Wu 47:04
You might use archetypes like “warrior”. You might have your own name for parts. I love that because it gives you ownership of exactly what that part wants to be called, if it wants to be called anything. And recognizing that inner part of you is very unique to you. It is like your own fingerprint. So nobody else can tell you exactly what that part is. But sometimes it is quite helpful to hear someone else say, well, that part sounds like it's your inner critic.

Candice Wu 47:40
And when we're so used to just all these different voices in our mind, these thoughts happening, it can feel really cluttered. And if someone else that gets to know you or comes in with this awareness of parts, they can say, oh, that part sounds like a different part. It doesn't have the same thing flavor or tone as that anxious part of you that was just speaking. This part's crying, what part is that? That sounds different from the part that has a stern voice.

Candice Wu 48:13
And then you can take that in and go oh, right, that feels like a totally different part. And another fun thing you can do with this is you can map out your inner self.

Candice Wu 48:25
I love taking post-it notes and just taking one part of yourself to a post-it note. So writing down like my five-year-old self, because a lot happened when I was five. And that part seems to be really sucking time or wants a lot of support, or shows up a lot. And also carries my joys. Okay, but one post-it note is my five-year-old self, and then another as the artist in me, and just certain name parts of yourself that seem to come into your life.

Candice Wu 49:01
And then name parts of yourself that you want to lead more often, energies that you'd like to hold and be in your life, like your higher self or your inner wisdom, your inner being, the essence of you, a dancer in you, the lover, the romantic. What parts of you do you want to show up more often, and write those down in the post-it too.

Candice Wu 49:35
And as you lay them out on like a giant piece of paper or a wall, I love using the wall, or even a desk. Then you can start to just intuitively place them how they relate to each other. As they said maybe the inner critic and the achiever part of you are comrades and they just work together all the time. They're inseparable. And they're super far away from the younger self, or maybe the younger so hides behind them.

Candice Wu 50:05
And so where are all these parts, if you could give them a visual location, map them out, dimensionally even like if there are layers, or if they're just in different parts of this space. Give them a visual so that you can start to see the inner workings of yourself and to go further than that.

Candice Wu 50:26
If you start to ask yourself, oh, what would the coach say to my younger self? Or, what if my younger self stood over here instead, next to that wise, inner sage. And how would that feel?

Candice Wu 50:43
Though getting some flexibility in the system so that you can use all the resources you have, so that you can use the many parts of you to support other parts of you that need support. This is how we look at or how we understand the idea that we have everything within us that we need to heal. That we have all the power within us. It's just about accessing all these parts of us at the right time.

Candice Wu 51:11
You might ask yourself, what part of me do I want to show up in my relationship with my partner or with my boss, or with my mother. You might even map out the parts of you that are your grandmother, like the grandmother in me. And maybe that relates to your specific grandmother because your grandmother reminds you of a pure love or generosity or something.

Candice Wu 51:42
And that can be an aspect of yourself that you start to cultivate. So we have that inner reflection of the outer people in our life that can give us a feeling sense and energy of a part of ourselves. You can also design new parts, if you didn't have a certain type of parent that you really needed when you were younger, maybe you're a sensitive person and you needed someone who was completely attuned and present to that. And so you can design an ideal parent, and create this inner parent that can love your younger self. Or maybe that is your adult self already.

Candice Wu 52:27
So we can play with this in so many ways. And as I said, it's really helpful to do this with somebody that can support you in understanding the different parts of you can ask curious questions and give you new curiosity and new awareness. And also bring in gentleness, tenderness, and love to the mix so that you can begin to love all the parts of you.

Candice Wu 52:54
Since there's so much you can do with this, in the following days, I'm going to share to really experiential, one with dialoguing with a part of yourself by sensing into them visualizing that part, talking with that part, and learning more about that part, that question of who's talking and what is their agenda, what do they need. So perhaps we can bring healing to this part, or tap into some wisdom that's already waiting for you to unleash and unlock. And that would be a dialoguing from who you are now sensing into imagining another part of you.

Candice Wu 53:35
And then the second one is going to be fun, and really interesting, because I'm going to dialogue with a part of you. So I'll ask you in this experience to step into a different part of you, and I'll talk to you as if we're right here together. But of course, we're not. And so you'll just be responding from your side of things when you listen. And I'll just invite you to experience this part. Talk to me from this part, and then step back into your whole self.

Candice Wu 54:18
So if you've done some family constellations work with me or through the podcast, this might already sound quite familiar. And it is, it's not really all that different. Because we have access to the energy and the knowledge of different parts of ourselves as well as different parts of others. It is one in the same. It is our intuitive sense and what comes through us and allowing what's already there to be seen, felt, and understood.

Candice Wu 54:49
And I also hope to be doing a couple more of these experiences around parts. So look out for those in the months to come. Starting out with these two.

Candice Wu 55:01
So we're at the end here, it's cold and snowy here where I am in Germany, and I'm just ready to cuddle up into a blanket and have some tea, do a little bit of arrest and hibernate. That's kind of what I've been wanting to do as they said a lot of crazy dreams are happening and so much as coming to the surface to heal. Even though I did say in the beginning of the podcast that not much is happening on the surface. Well, I think it was just turning and now it's really coming through to the surface.

Candice Wu 55:39
Because this morning, I woke up to finish the second half of this podcast. And a lot of grief was moving through from what I started to tell you about yesterday at the beginning of this podcast.

Candice Wu 55:51
So as we conclude this podcast, let's just take a moment together and feel your being feel your presence here. Along with me, just take a couple of breaths. Notice where you are. You don't often take the time to do that, to just notice our surroundings and to take pleasure in what we're seeing around us.

Candice Wu 56:20
We're to close your eyes and feel inward. And just notice your own body here and notice your breath. That you are alive right now, the most simple thing. And just thank yourself for listening in today and developing yourself, having fun with yourself, healing, loving yourself.

Candice Wu 56:56
And as we go today, just want to thank you for being here. It's really lovely to hear from you when you email me and share with me what's going on for you. I love hearing from people I already know and connect with or who are my clients. And also I love hearing from new people. It's just delightful to hear or to receive a message from someone I don't even know who says I've been listening to your podcast and found these things helpful or wasn't so sure about what you said there, what do you mean. Feel free to do that, feel free to share or ask questions and to give me any ideas about what you want to hear about coming up.

Candice Wu 57:41
We have just a short time until the new year next week. I'll be talking about some of my end of the year thoughts and how I conclude the year out, cycle of life and death, aligning with death. I love that. So happy holidays if you're celebrating and stay warm out there if it's cold where you are.

Candice Wu 58:08
And if you're listening in and you want to stay connected with me to listen to more podcasts, healing, experiential, or other offerings that I have, check out my website at CandiceWu.com/Embody where you can sign up for the newsletter that will inform you of all these things. You can also connect in on Facebook. Search Embody Community and you'll find us. That's where I post 5 to 10-minute videos around self-love, tips, and meditations.

Candice Wu 58:41
And as I mentioned the dream course earlier, check that out on Skillshare. You can find it at CandiceWu.com/dreamclass1, the number one.

Candice Wu 58:53
Thanks again and see you all next week on the Embody Podcast.

Introduction

This episode is a healing experiential around dialoguing with a part of yourself. You can find the full podcast around Parts work at CandiceWu.com/parts.

So this week, we’ve been talking about tuning into the many parts of you for empowerment, healing, tapping into your wisdom, and to help you make decisions and find clarity in life.

If you have had inner chatter, where you just can’t quite make a decision, and you go back and forth, or you have certain triggers that keep on happening, and they repeat itself, it might be helpful to check out who’s talking, what part of me is engaged here, or reacting.

This healing experiential will help you do that.

So I’m not going to talk too much here, you can listen to the full podcast around this at CandiceWu.com/parts. It’s around Parts work, voice dialogue, connecting with the parts of you.

So here, we’re just going to jump in pretty quickly and dialogue with one part of yourself.

Let’s Jump In!

The most ideal way to do this is to do it in a private and safe space. If you like to do things on the train or the subway as you go, in transit, that’s fine, too, it might just be a little distracting, unless you’re really good at tuning everything else out.

So wherever you are, find a comfortable place, feel free to get some water, get a blanket or cozy pillow and you can sit or lie down whatever is most comfortable and safe for you.

I invite you to close your eyes, if that feels comfortable for you or look down.

Just take a moment to release your attention from the outside world. Let go of any attention on work, stressors, life, relationships, anything that’s weighing on you. And also just release your attention on the future, any worries, your laundry list of to do’s.

Letting go and turning all of that attention towards yourself, with love, with gentleness, with compassion. And if you don’t know those emotions or energies, if they’re not easy, just imagine what it would feel like to be able to feel love towards yourself, gentleness, compassion.

Invite a Part Of You Forward

Now we’re going to invite one part of yourself to come forward so that you can connect with that part and have a conversation just like you would talk with a friend.

To see inside of your heart, what part of you you’d like to talk to, connect with?

You might sense into what part of you you’d like to cultivate, grow into or lead the way. For example, your inner wisdom, your higher self, your adult self, the artist in you, the enthusiast, the wise inner sage, whatever part of you that.

This part of you may or may not have a name, but just sensing into the part of you that you want to step into, the empowered part.

The other thing you can do is connect with a part of you that you’d like to understand more, maybe that’s a part of you that reacts in conversation with your mother or in a relationship that you have.

Maybe it’s a part of you that keeps on chiming in when you have to make certain decisions. Sometimes you don’t know who’s talking exactly, but you have this sense of, “Oh, the part of me that gets really angry when ”x“ happens.” Or, the part of me that tells me I shouldn’t follow my gut. The part of me that starts crying when someone gives me a certain look.

So you don’t have to pinpoint the name of the part of you but just the part of you that has any little clue that leads to this part.

So the clues might be a sensation that you feel, like, maybe your fists tighten up. It might be an emotion that happens, or words that you say, words in your mind, thoughts. So take a moment to connect up with any words, sensations, an energy or a feeling sense of a part of you that you’d like to understand or connect with here.

If you need more time, feel free to stop the podcast here and take some moments to look at what part of you you’re curious about, what parts of you become activated, or what parts of you do you feel you want to empower. And if you’re ready, let’s continue on.

Who Is this Part? Getting To Know This Part

And as you close your eyes or look down, sort of feel into that clue towards the part of you that you’d like to dialogue with here and call forth this part of you that has this feeling or words with a part of you that you can name, that you’d like to talk with.

If you’re not sure about who this part is, you might ask, “Who’s talking? What are you or who are you?”

And just connect with this part, see this part and acknowledge just exactly how this part shows up.

Notice if it looks like a part of you or someone else, a creature, color, shape, figure, be open to however this part of you shows up and is.

And as you look upon this part of you, ask it, “What’s your story? What would you like me to know right now?”

And listen without any filter, without any judgment, from a space of the heart, not where you’re analyzing or thinking about the response but just asking and listening. “What is your story or what would you like me to know right now?”

Just see what comes into you. What feeling? Image? Thoughts?

Usually, these are just a flash of a thought or a sense of something and it can happen pretty quickly versus the analyzing mind trying to think it through and walk it step by step.

This doesn’t really have that kind of logic, because it’s wisdom that’s trying to surface to you.

You might ask this part, “What do you desire for me? What is your wish for me?”

If this was a reactive part, or hurt part, a part of you that’s feeling something, ask them about it. “What makes you feel this way or what’s happening right now?”

And as you listen, acknowledge anything this part is sharing with you in whatever way it’s showing you and let it be free to express in all the different ways that can. You might ask this part, “When do you show up?” And listen to anything it says. “And how did you learn this way of being that you are? Where did you learn or who did you learn from, if anyone?”

You might ask, “Is there anything you need from me right now?” And be open to anything it shares with you and if it tells you something that needs from outside of you, see if you can imagine that for this part of you or go deeper, and see if there’s something underlying that emotionally that this part of you wants to have.

“And is there anything you need to feel free or safe? And what can support you in thriving?”

Feel free to ask, “Do you have any other messages for me?”

And now also, feel free to ask anything else that you would like to know, would like support with, would like to understand, give this part of you the space to tell you exactly in their own way.

And now thank this part for showing up and surround this part with love, and release your attention on this part of you or this part and just come back to your sense of yourself, your being here and now, your body, feel your breath, just as it is right now.

Coming Back to All Of You

Start to give a little movement to your body or deepen your breath. Stretch if you’d like to and when you open the eyes or gaze upward, just do so gradually letting yourself arrive back in the space of here and now.

And as you feel yourself present here, feel that you are yourself and reflect back on the experience of this. What part were you talking with? What did you learn?

Just notice how you feel at the moment as you gaze upon this part of you that you’re talking with, where do you embody this part of yourself? How do you feel now?

And you might take some more time, or repeat the exercise to connect on another day or to give yourself more time with this part of you, see what wisdom you discover as this evolves.

And now that you’ve connected with this part of you, it’s my guess that this may continue to grow or open up for you.

If this was challenging for you or hard to do, hard to see or visualize a part of you, that’s okay.

If you practice it again, if you have that curiosity, it might become easier. Or, I recommend practicing the second experiential where I invite you to stand in a part of yourself and that can really be a game-changer because you can really feel in your body differently and hone in on just this part of you, isolate it so that you can really get to know it.

Continue to Observe

So just observe as the day goes on, and the week goes on, just what happens with this part of you, if you’re able to connect with it differently, or feel differently in the scenarios that you’re in, that this part of you can be brought forward or received back a little bit.

If it was a younger part, you may not want your younger part to lead when you’re in your career and job.

You may want some more empowered part of you or resource part of you to step in, so be gentle with yourself and curious and compassionate and just allow this to be more of the discovery for you, more play and understanding of yourself.

Perhaps it’s painful and brings up some emotions, just allow those to continue moving and if you ever need support, feel free to reach out to me. I’d be happy to work with you or give you some resources on what can support you the most.

Thanks so much for tuning in today and check out the second experiential if this was interesting for you or if you’d like a different spin on things. Take care and I’ll leave you with a little music to end.

Introduction to Voice Dialogue

We are going to have some fun today. This episode is a healing experiential, where I walk you through to dialogue with a part of yourself, where I speak with as part of you, and you can respond from your end wherever you are in the world.

So today’s healing experiential is voice dialogue. It’s going to be an exercise where I invite you to step into one single part of yourself.

I will ask questions through this guided experience and support you in discovering, understanding, and seeing a part of yourself and the dimension of this one part of you.

It’s different from the healing experiential, that we did the other day where you dialogue yourself with a part of yourself.

This is where I dialogue with a part of you. You can find the full podcast on Parts work at CandiceWu.com/parts. And also the first healing experiential is there too.

I will Dialogue with a Part of You

So we’re going to jump in and I recommend doing this in a space that’s private so you can just fully let go and tune into this.

Find a space where you’re comfortable and just let yourself be natural.

Let yourself close your eyes if you like or look down and just shake out your body, move your body, shake your arms, shake your legs, breathe deeply, release out your mouth. Just shake off the day so far.

Release anything that’s weighing on you at the moment.

And as you settle into your body, feel your belly, be aware of your hips, notice your legs, your knees, and your feet.

Bring your hands to your heart or palms together just to connect with yourself. Notice how you’re feeling at the moment, how your body is.

And as you go deeper with yourself, connect in with a part of yourself that you’d like to explore, understand, step into.

Who Would You Like To Explore?

Just like the first experiential in this series, it can be a part of you that you’d like to cultivate and find empowerment in, bring into your life, could be an ideal parent, it could be your best friend, because there are parts of your best friend you really admire.

It could be the part of you that’s the warrior or the goddess in you, could be the leader in you, the empowered part of yourself, higher self, captain, whatever it is, it doesn’t have to have a name.

Or, it could be a part of yourself that you struggle with and you’d like to understand or find healing with.

Maybe that’s a younger self. Maybe that’s your teenage self, or the part of you that gets angry with your partner, or the part of you that feel stubborn, anxious.

The part of you that has negative thoughts about yourself or criticism, or that reacts when you’re in the car and flip someone off.

Whatever part that is, just tune into the part of you you’d like to explore.

See if you’re willing to explore this part, and that part is also willing to come forward. And you might know if that’s a yes, because you feel called to it. It might feel uncomfortable, or you might get nervous but you feel like you want to. If it’s a no, it might feel like your body shutting down, you’re just not wanting this. Or, there’s a lot of restriction in you, a tightness that says, “I don’t I don’t think this is the right thing for me right now.”

Just trust yourself. You need to pause here and check-in with yourself, go ahead.

Overwhelmed?

Anytime if you feel overwhelmed, or you need to take a break, be sure to step back into your full self and say your name to yourself even, feel your body and look at your surroundings and take a break.

You can feel free to pause the podcast, you can jump back in later if you want or try again later. Or, maybe it’s not the right time for you.

Follow your own boundaries and what your body needs through this experience.

Step Into This Part

So if you’re ready to tune into this part of you and step into it, I invite you now to open your eyes if they’re closed and move to a different space in the room or wherever you’re at, and embody.

Become as if you could just become this one part of you, become this part of you. Let this part of you show up however it wants to show up, perhaps it’s lying down, standing up in a certain way, maybe it’s seated in a certain position, moving in the corner, under a blanket, however it wants to show up.

Take a moment to feel into your body here and what it’s like to be in just this part of you and even look upon your whole self from this place where you are now.

Picture your whole self where you were standing or seated before and notice what it’s like to look at your whole self from here as this one part of you.

Notice if you feel any warmth or coldness towards yourself, if there’s a connection or not. Notice how your body is.

And I’m going to talk to you as if you’re just this one part of your whole self and you can feel free to respond in your head or out loud especially if in the privacy of your own space. You can just say the words out loud and let them be heard by yourself.

You might even talk about your whole self in the third person, so that you can really feel the separation, the distinction of you, yourself, in this place. This one part of you, separate from your whole self, from the aware ego in you, the aware self.

Hello to This Part Of You

So, I will begin to dialogue with you now.

How are you doing from this place?

How do you feel?

Are there any messages you have for your whole self right now? Anything you want your whole self to know?

Why do you think your whole self wanted to connect with you today?

What gifts do you bring to yourself and your whole self?

What is it that you feed her?

What are the times that you show up the most in your whole self’s life?

What is your purpose in your whole self’s life? What are you here for?

Is there anything you need or any way that your whole self can support you?

And what do you wish for yourself? What do you truly want for your whole self?

And is there anything else you want to tell me or tell your whole self?

Closing and Gratitude

Thank you for showing up and thank you for sharing. And if there’s anything you want to tell your whole self, want you to do that, and picture yourself telling your whole self, and them hearing you.

Or if there’s anything you want, another part of you, to tell you or support you in, feel free to picture that now.

Before we transition, take another moment to feel into your body and notice your emotions. Notice what’s happening inside, where you’re drawn to be or how you’re drawn to move.

If there are any words, or any story that’s coming from your body, your emotions, your heart, feel free to share that.

Take an inner snapshot of what you feel, what it’s like to be in your body right here. Take a couple of deep breaths. Take it off if you want to and allow yourself to come back to the place where you started as your whole self.

Coming Back to Your Whole Self

And now I’m talking to you, your whole self, not just the one part of you that we talked with earlier. And as you arrive back at your whole self, state your name to yourself, say, “I am..” and say your name.

Take a moment and just touch every part of your body, from head to toe whether that’s with a light touch or firm touch, just allow your body, your nervous system to land back here, simply be felt.

Notice your surroundings. Notice your feet and look towards the part of you that we spoke with and that you spoke from. Imagine that part of you they are now. Imagine the position that your body was in there.

Notice all of what this part of you shared, all its desires, fears, needs, purpose. How they feel towards you and how you feel towards them.

And notice what it’s like to look upon this part of you now. Notice what feels different in your body and what may feel the same.

Is there any different space in your chest or different sensation in your body, an emotion you’re feeling now, an awareness or clarity you have? Are there things you’re still curious about or wondering? Are there things unresolved? New things discovered.

If there’s anything left hanging open, you can feel free to go back to this experience and repeat it or go to the first healing experiential on dialoguing with this part of you, or you can just simply look upon this part of you, picture them and ask them right now.

If there’s something that you want to know more about anything that’s left hanging, if you need to say it.

If this part of you wanted you to say something to them, maybe encourage them or share love, your love for them or forgive them, do that now and just see what it’s like to be on the other side.

Ending

And when you’re ready, just let go of it all, feel your breath again, and just simply feel the aliveness of your body, the presence of yourself here in this space that you’re at, look around you and get in touch with the things that look pleasurable around you.

Thank yourself for being here and thank the part of you that we spoke with, for showing up.

You just dialogued from a part of yourself, a part of your inner self that you either wanted to learn more about or empower yourself with or find healing in and just recognize this as very deep work.

Be gentle and curious, compassionate about whatever showing up now, and what continues to unfold for you.

If you’re wanting any support, I would encourage you to reach out to me. I’d be happy to give you referrals or to work with you personally. And I recommend that, if this is interesting to you at all to work with someone that understands parts, because it can just open up so much internally and in your life, having someone else see from the outside what’s going on and ask just the right questions or shine a light in a certain space in you can be such a sacred and empowering experience as well as healing.

Thanks for tuning in today and being willing to experience this. Again, you can listen to the full podcast at CandiceWu.com/parts.

And that’s where you’ll also find the first healing experiential which I recommend for you too. And I look forward to hearing from you if you have any reactions, thoughts, curiosities, etc.

And I’ll leave you with just a little music today to soothe your spirit and give you a chance to just unwind after doing such a deep exercise. Wishing that you feel love for yourself as you go through the day and always.

Candice Wu 0:00

Hello, everyone! This is Candice Wu on the Embody Podcast, and today I am sitting in a little alcove in Kowloon, Hong Kong. It is my birthday today, it’s March 21, the first day of spring, I am 35 years old. And I, as I was meditating and going inside myself, I just felt that this message came through, and I wanted to record this special podcast to share this really special message with you today, probably a message that I’ve been holding for 35 years inside my being. And it is the essential part of what I want to bring to the world, the message that I have to everyone and most of all to myself, something that I challenged myself to step into all the time.

Candice Wu 0:54

This podcast is about loving your voice, becoming fully self-expressed, which is the deepest form of self-love is coming into your entire being. So, as you can hear around me, there are different birds, there’s construction, there are cars moving by, and I hope that you enjoy this background music as I’m here, these backgrounds sounds as I’m here, in this little park. Oh boy, there’s a lot going on.

Candice Wu 1:27

So, my message to you today is to really challenge yourself, ask of yourself to step into the deepest form of loving yourself, healing all of the betrayals that you might have internally and bringing your true self to life. As they begin this podcast, I’m actually watching somebody empty the trash. That’s the noise that you’re experiencing around me, and it’s quite perfect because, in a way, it’s like emptying what’s not really working for us in our life. And that’s part of what this podcast is about.

Candice Wu 2:10

I know now that the scariest things to speak about or to do, are the ones that I must do. The things that bring me fear or resistance are the things that are actually so true to the core of my being. And I’m constantly challenged by my partner to just express these things, just put them out there, and I spent a long time of my life keeping all of this in. And my message to you today is this, what you have to say is absolutely essential. You have a specific gift, a specific way of being a message, and a specific way to share it, to express it or to show it.

Candice Wu 2:56

So, what has been an area that you have felt shame or self-consciousness about? Are there places of your expression that you have felt brought you fear or stopped you in your tracks? Sometimes, I’ve expressed things and I’ve felt brutally hurt or wounded and I just took them away inside, and it was those very things that were so close to who I was and who I am. That that was the reason they were wounded because it meant something. So, are there areas that you have felt hurt or wounded, or scared to share? Things that you’ve had in a way or said that this is for you when you’ve made enough money or when you have the time. Take a look at your journals, your notes, scraps of paper. How you have spent your time? Where you feel most alive but perhaps are not giving much attention to? In my looking at this, I’ve asked myself, “How have I betrayed myself?

Candice Wu 4:07

And this is something you can ask yourself, “What do you spend your time doing to ignore your soul, your soul’s calling, your soul’s truth? Where do you spend most of your time and what drains you? What are the obligations that you fill up in your life so that you can keep on avoiding what it is that is true or truth?” Other ways to look at what your soul calls you to do are to notice your dreams. If you do and remember them, what are your dreams about?

Candice Wu 4:38

For a while, I was dreaming about Thailand, and just seeing the rice paddies in the river in Chiang Mai, and I had never dreamed about a specific location before other than like my home or someone else’s home. But this was specific, a specific country and I had no idea for some time why I was dreaming about it. And as I explored it, every time I thought about Thailand, it meant freedom. And it doesn’t mean that I had to go to Thailand to get my freedom, but eventually, it really felt that I was being called to go there.

Candice Wu 5:12

Another experience of dreaming was for maybe two years, I’ve been dreaming about getting rid of all my belongings, even having the fantasy that I’d have a fire and that all my belongings would just disappear, and I’d start fresh, I’d start light with very, very little with me, nothing with me, really. But when I thought about doing that, my egos reaction was, “No, not my stuff! I don’t want to get rid of my stuff.”

Candice Wu 5:41

So, what are your dreams? And what are your daydreams? Where does your mind go? Chances are that these are the keys to where some of your gift, your passion, your desire, or your Dharma, your purposeful path, or journey in life lies. These are all situations and experiences that show you what is a part of your truth, your voice, your essential being. In my opinion, you have to share this, it’s the essence of you. And for me, a core piece of my soul feels like it’s dying when I don’t, when I hide myself or ignore these bits of truth, these desires that I have inside.

Candice Wu 6:27

On the other hand, you obviously have the choice to share your gifts or not, or to even give any attention to them or not, a choice of which parts of you get to live, the fear and the maintenance of the life you have, the ego that tells you that this earthly life is important, these daily tasks are important, to-do lists or the perfectionism that makes you want to withdraw and not go for it. Perhaps it’s important to maintain the facade or the image that you’ve kept up. Maybe that’s the choice that you want. But isn’t it just important to know what you’re doing, and to know what you may be ignoring or what you may be hiding?

Candice Wu 7:13

So, as I think more about my purpose, it is something that makes me feel like me. What part of you or what activities, what way of being makes you feel like you, like completely yourself? And if you ignore this, or don’t give any attention to it, what part of you dies? Will you accept dying in this way? Would you agree to this kind of death? Sounds like a very slow and painful death to me, which is the life had been living for many years.

Candice Wu 7:49

My friend Andrew Royal, who is in Milwaukee, as a psychotherapist says to me this quote, “This is how I will die.” And he uses that line for almost everything he does when he makes a choice, or when he has a thought or when he chooses to express himself or not, even a simple action. He has thought about, “This is how I will die. And I’m okay with that.” And I really like that.

Candice Wu 8:19

My message today is not a message of pushing away and rejecting who you are today, the life you’ve created, what fears that you have, and who you are with those fears. It’s really about honoring those parts of you that are already here, and more. More of you, the parts of you that you’ve kept away, it’s time to bring them out into the light instead of letting them die that slow death internally. Is it a coincidence that we see death all around us? On a spiritual level, this can be seen as a message to us, a reminder of death, a reminder of life then, because death forces the knowledge of life and what’s living, and what will not live anymore, what is dying, what will soon die.

Candice Wu 9:09

And this type of group processing that I’m involved with called Group Relations or Tavistock, or if we look at Shadow Work, in Yang Yin theory and psychology, the destruction that surrounds us, that we allow that we partake in or that we’re bystanders, too, or that we’re even stepping up to speak out against, perhaps we need to see it, to come to some strength and truth within, to compel us sharply and fiercely into who we need to become in ourselves. That, which we cannot wait any longer to do.

Candice Wu 9:48

So, I asked you, when will it be more or equally important to share who you are, who you truly are, more important than money, to-do list, the image that you’re holding up? When does dying for your passion, for a purpose come into play? I think about movies of war when men and women have gone to war and chosen that they will die for a certain cause or a belief set that they are truly wholehearted in. And at least from the fantasies that I have seen about, in the movies I’ve seen, it touches me really deeply to feel their conviction and their commitment, the thing that they believe in, that they’re just driven by that thing that is beyond this life, beyond the human form, the idea or the truth, that they feel entirely given to surrendering to.

Candice Wu 10:49

To me, that’s a life worth living, and that’s a life worth giving to where you’re following your potential and you’re being in what you specifically came here for. And this is a call to you to be truly yourself, shamelessly, congruently and wildly, only the way that you know how to do it. Your dream and your yearning do not have to be giant, or outlandish or crazy, doesn’t have to be a big idea or a big thing. Don’t pressure yourself that way to be more or less than you already are. What you want, who you are, is already there. It’s already living in you. It’s just about allowing it to be seen, grounding yourself in your body, healing what’s in the way or what parts of you are stuck in time, stuck in the past, stuck in pieces of trauma, or unfinished, incomplete experiences. It’s about tuning into right now and creating a relationship with yourself, loving yourself deeply so that your body and soul communicates its wisdom to you easily. And do listen.

Candice Wu 12:08

There’s communication back and forth, a loving one, versus one of resistance and pushing away. Your dream can be simply knitting or having a yarn shop, it can be taking photographs in your backyard, gardening, or having chickens, minimizing your space and cluttering. It can be about speaking truthfully, from your heart, to those that you love, or being a mother or father. It can be so simple. Also, when we embrace the potentiality of ourselves and integrate more of who we are, at the truest levels, it is full of ease, not force, not pushing. It’s with wholeness and acknowledging all the parts of us because there’s a purity to the desire and purpose, there’s a fullness and expansion that’s already there, with what’s completely true and congruent to you, and only you.

Candice Wu 13:05

There’s no need to force or to pry, to white knuckle it, or to even reject, and disown other parts of us, that may be fearful or may be very present in our lives now. And as you think about this, does judgment or fear of what others will think about you stop you? If so, you’re not the only one, it has definitely stopped me at times. And it’s something I still work on with every single step I take. Some things are easier now than before and I certainly have experienced my fear and my emotions differently than I used to. But with an especially new challenge or taking myself into new territory, there’s still self-judgment that I project on to the outside world, and worry that others will judge me. So, I work on that within myself, and I get support. The truth is, it doesn’t matter what people think. It’s important to be in your full expression just for you, and that you matter.

Candice Wu 14:09

In the tantric philosophy, we exist as consciousness knowing itself. Consciousness wants to live and know itself in all of its possibilities, and all of its expressions. That’s the essence and meaning of “Om om,” the sound that we chant in yoga classes, “Om” meaning all possibility, all probability. So, whatever is important or alive to you right now, today is what is here, what’s coming through you, and what’s essential to the present, what’s essential to your life, and perhaps even those around you. Sometimes, that includes what’s been stuck in time in your soul, what’s in the past, but felt now and coming up now.

Candice Wu 14:59

Forget what other people think about what you’re doing or expressing to the degree that it’s helpful and respectful to yourself, to the degree that it honors you. If you’re coming from a place of love and awareness in you, that’s all you need to focus on. We need to start valuing our own experience and existence as important and worthy. You are able to witness value and validate yourself and bring yourself to life. Right now, you may not know your larger purpose, your life purpose or your soul’s desire on the whole, but it doesn’t matter. You can know what’s right now, the first step, the opening.

Candice Wu 15:43

For me, it was noticing the dreams of decluttering and getting rid of all my stuff, and just seeing what that was all about, exploring it. It didn’t mean I had to get rid of all my stuff. It just meant, “see what this is about Candice.” And at that time, I didn’t know what I needed to. A lot of times our soul gives us messages, and we don’t know why. For me, I wasn’t ready to face the fact that I deeply wanted to explore an adventure through traveling, it brought way too much fear. After all, I came from a Chinese family that was poor, my great grandparents starved to death in China. Luckily, my grandpa survived. My grandparents on my father’s side seem to feel like they were never enough. And even to the degree that my great grandma would eat every single grain of rice, recycle all the bits of scrap paper and fabric. And while this was resourceful, it also seemed to come from a place of not having enough and pinching pennies.

Candice Wu 16:45

My grandma on the other side of my family, my mother’s side tells me that even learning how to clean dog poop rice, rice that had been pooped on is a good skill to have. Why? Because you might need to, and she had to. My fear was far beyond what happened to my family lineage. It was the belief that didn’t shut itself when times changed. And that my ancestry didn’t shed that belief when times changed.

Candice Wu 17:18

Growing up, my father encouraged me to make money to have stability and security. So having a job as an art teacher, well, that didn’t quite make sense to him, that I wasn’t going to be making enough money and his standards. It was something, it gave me health insurance, it gave me consistent employment that I could count on, for the most part. Well, my joy didn’t quite matter. Luckily, my mom was always about following your heart. However, that wasn’t so easy, because I didn’t see her do that until my late 20s. Not that all of these stories were everything but the family lineage and seeing my parents, and what they were sharing with me was the first way of knowing how to be in this world, coming into this family. And then not to mention societal consciousness, the beliefs that society holds, or at least the ones that I directly experienced, that brings another dimension of fear and conditioning.

Candice Wu 18:26

So for me, the realization that I wanted to travel brought so many fears. How could I travel and make a living? How could I have enough? How could I be enough to have it was I worthy of it? It was completely outside of my family’s scope of how life worked, what you could do with life, and what it meant to be successful. So, I did the best thing, I ignored it, and hit this part of me for almost 20, some 25, 27 years.

Candice Wu 18:59

That worked for some time, but I couldn’t help but feel trapped in different career situations, even when they were fabulous, and it made amazing experiences. As I did more healing work on my previous trauma and releasing the fears that lived in my body, the beliefs that I had inherited in my ancestry, to even know that those existed, and to bring them to light with love. All of that helped me to begin seeing that I was a part of this whole universe, that I wasn’t as separate as I thought, and I was a piece of this universe as complete possibility.

Candice Wu 19:43

And I mean that on a very deep and powerful level, on levels that I’ve not yet tapped into. And yes, I mean, the levels of levitation and getting stabbed in the gut with a knife and not bleeding it all kind of thing, or manifesting honey dripping from a Buddha sculpture out of nowhere, manifesting things that my mind does not comprehend are possible or doing things that I don’t think are possible, things I’ve heard about, and that I’ve learned the beginnings of the pathway to those, but I don’t know that in my body yet. But doing those things don’t really mean anything to me, other than experiencing the marvel of the power within me. What matters to me is the storehouse of love and power in me specifically that wants to express itself, the consciousness of a particular kind that I hold in my very being, in my very existence, at the core.

Candice Wu 20:46

And so for me, I could begin to take those steps of expressing from a pure place of my being by accepting and healing all the fears that came up in me, knowing myself on the level of another belief set, one that came from love, loving, and potentiality. And each step I took with that, I saw more and more of my vision, I saw more and more of my gifts and truth, myself in the moment, and being present for what I’m here for. So, I realize I’m here to experience, to live and to love fully, to feel everything I can. And I mean everything, I even enjoy feeling sadness, and anger, and joy and delight.

Candice Wu 21:38

I’m here to adventure and claim all the power within and to feel completely connected with those around me, connected to the universe. I’m here to integrate all the possibility that I am, and to support and inspire others and seeing and loving themselves to give themselves over to themselves. So, what are you here for? Be direct with yourself, forthcoming, clear the illusions and cut through the layers of protection, and also honor that they’ve existed there to help you for some time, to begin with. Do you need this protection anymore? How much of it do you need right now? Having gentleness and compassion is really good for the path of coming to yourself.

Candice Wu 22:28

There’s no time to waste on getting started, noticing that there is even something in you that calls to you is step one, the awareness. This has its own transformative power. And the more we give ourselves to the things that are just keeping our lives afloat, sustaining us, sustaining our work life or image with our colleagues, the more we’re colluding with a false life. The more we’re colluding with betraying ourselves at a very deep level, we are commingling with fear, married to fear and dishonoring ourselves at the deepest level.

Candice Wu 23:13

If you’re already in your dream life, that is truly your present-day fullness and desire, good, great! If you’re not, great, because you have the most beautiful opportunity here to become yourself. If you feel a spark here with what I’m saying, take it and run with it. Do something to cultivate the deep inner longing that you have. Notice the seed that has been planted. You can pretend to ignore this but your soul won’t, your body won’t. Your body won’t lie to you. This is one major reason why we get sick. This is disease.

Candice Wu 23:56

When you put aside a part of yourself that feeds you, that is you, that is your soul and you let it rot, you let it decay and die, that’s when we get sick. If we ignore the part of us that makes us wildly ourselves. So, if this inspires you, I am so excited for you. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or want support on this journey.

Candice Wu 24:22

And let me take a moment to share with you the Ally with Death Visualization Experience. This is something I designed with the inspiration of the Shaman’s death, and Ana Forrest’s death meditation. It’s a ritual to get you fearlessly and deeply to your aching desires. So, if you want to explore, the yearning is behind your existence, the voice that you truly are, what you truly yearn for, I have this experience for you. It’s a guided online process that brings you to break and dismantle the armor of the life you created. And to shift you into seeing what the truth actually is for you.

Candice Wu 25:10

It leads you through a simulation of your death in 10 hours, exploring what you regret, what you ache for, and what you need to do to live, what’s worthy of your life, what’s worthy of living, what needs to end and die and what you would feel alive in. It inspires and guides you to embody the shifts that need to happen for you to live, to actually live. It will soon come with an audio that guides you through the entire process and you can even share with me in a brief consultation session what comes up and explore your next steps.

Candice Wu 25:47

So, this work is my soul’s true calling, to be on the journey with you and exploring you being you. That’s why the name of my practice is called Embody Your Nature. I offer individual session packages and group intensive and there’s one coming up in May 2018 that uses ancestral healing as a platform for your specific intentions of being yourself, loving yourself or stepping into something. If this especially resonates with you, you might be someone who would be perfect for the Soul Body Retreat. This retreat is for women, it’s an October 2018 in Zion National Park. For the men, I have other referrals for you. But this retreat is about sinking soul and body to realize yourself, to feel like yourself, heal and create wildly from your heart, from your soul, from love.

Candice Wu 26:44

So, today, I will leave you with a quote that a friend of mine has on her wall in her home. This friend is Rachel Huttner, she is actually somebody that I’ve interviewed in a podcast previously. She has on her wall the quote, “Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but within yourself.” This quote is by André Gide. “Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but within yourself.” Such a good reminder for all of us.

Candice Wu 27:19

Before you leave, I’d like to invite you to subscribe to the weekly Embody Podcast at CandiceWu.com/podcast or learn more about me and get free healing resources on embodiment, meditations and self-love by going to CandiceWu.com/embody.

Candice Wu 27:37

And if you liked this, felt inspired or enjoyed previous episodes of the Embody Podcast, I could really use your support and help. I’d like to share these podcasts with a wider audience and also improve upon them. So, I greatly appreciate your words of feedback in a review on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. You can go to CandiceWu.com/podcast/review to get all the instructions on how to leave a review. I’d really appreciate that and see you next time.

Candice Wu 28:09

With deep love and gratitude, thank you for joining me today.

Candice Wu 0:00

In the words of our guest today, Roxanne Partridge, to all y’all soul working women befriending your shadows, liberating clustered golden eggs, unearthing buried vessels of vitality, lubricating cutthroats with song, cleansing bones of patriarchy, rewiring your birthright to love into the light of your eyes and the fiber of your being, and rebirthing yourself with your blood, I see you.

Candice Wu 0:27

Roxanne works with menstruality, sexuality, empowerment, and embodiment from the depths up and out.

Candice Wu 0:38

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 1:13

Hey, it’s wonderful to have you here today. It is the first month of December 2019. Wow, we are headed into the depths of winter for some places in the world and how fitting because we’re talking a lot about the darkness and depths within ourselves here in this episode with Roxanne Partridge. She is the founder of Embody Period, which has many meanings, which you’ll hear about in this episode.

Candice Wu 1:47

I have a couple of announcements before we jump into everything, first, this episode is the 100th episode of the Embody Podcast. 100, that means it’s the hundredth episode but that doesn’t include the experiential and meditations that are held under as an umbrella of the main episodes. So the main episodes are up to 100, so that is a big accomplishment for this podcast. And for me, it’s been just wonderful doing this podcast and coming up with ideas, sharing, and putting my voice out there in this way. I thank you so much for all of you who have in some way fueled this podcast to continue forward and to have the life and love that it does. All of you listening, all of you sharing the podcast with someone, a friend or client who may benefit just remembering it and tuning in once in a while or if you are a consistent listener, and if you have supported the podcast in any way with monetary donations, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. And you are all here. I invite you all to celebrate with me the hundredth episode.

Candice Wu 3:14

I have another piece to share but this one is of a different tone. I want to share that Silver, the horse that I connected with at Silver Horse Retreat with Sarah Fancy, my mentor for Horse Constellations, Silver has passed away. If you’ve been following my podcast, you might have already heard about Silver and how he, the second morning I was there on retreat with Sarah and the horses, that he went down, he was lying down and he couldn’t get up because his leg was stuck in a part of the barrier, the fence and she had to pull him out and he like huffed and puffed and finally got on his legs. It was crouching down and then bounced off the railing, and then he was fine. And she was worried at that time that he was getting old and maybe it was going to pass soon but he lived on for another, think, six to eight months after that up until just last week.

Candice Wu 4:18

In another podcast, I’ve shared about my meditations with him and Horse Constellation experiences with him. I’ll link those in the show notes if you want to hear about my experiences and take this time to honor Silver with me. There are three main episodes that highlight my experiences with Silver or stories about him through Sarah and those are at CandiceWu.com/dancingwithhorses or CandiceWu.com/horseconstellations, or CandiceWu.com/sarafancy.

Candice Wu 4:54

And right now I’d like to take this moment to honor Silver, to thank him for his love and presence, connection, and all of the lives and souls and hearts that he’s touched, including mine. He lived, I believe 35 long years of life, and outlived many other horses, according to Sarah, and I am just so blessed that he was on Earth at a time that I got to meet him and share the time together.

Candice Wu 5:27

I will never forget the time I was trying to bring him up to this smaller arena and there was a little trail, a rocky trail that went upward to get to this space and I had taken the wrong way up and he was telling me “No” because he refused to go up it. And at some point, he gave in. I was really patient, but he gave in and said, Okay, let’s do this and sure enough, it was the wrong way and it was this disaster of going uphill. And so I ended up just going back down, of course the right way and at that point, he did not want to go back up and so I chose to listen and we walked together back towards his normal space and we just stayed outside of it. But we stood there and meditated for about 35 minutes just standing there, neither of us even made any moves and we had this beautiful meditation experience, standing in presence together. Even though there was hay on the ground, he wasn’t bothered or interested, he was just with me. We were together and it was magical.

Candice Wu 6:48

Thank you, Silver and I’m sending you my blessings on your journey and may you be in peace and love.

Candice Wu 6:59

Before we jump into the episode, it’s also fitting that the Ally with Death experiential, which is now an audio experience is out there, it is alive despite the name of death. But it is perfectly fitting for the cycles of life and death that we speak too, here in this episode, the cycle of your period, the cycle of your moon cycle, that’s your personal moon cycle and the collective moon cycles, the cycle of life and death that reflect itself through the seasonal shifts, and here, getting into the underbellies of winter.

Candice Wu 7:40

This guided audio experience is beautiful because it features music, hand pan music by artist Larry Saint Germain, who tailored the music to this specific experience to stir and shake up the blood, the stagnancy, the life force in you, anything that needs to die or be let go of what wants to be seen through you, through your soul, through your Spirit, through your body, your mind, and what wants to die off so that there can be more space for life itself, for being, for your vital core essence and the luminosity of yourself that wants to shine through on this next step of your life.

Candice Wu 8:28

And here we are, a month away from 2020 where we’re stepping into another decade of life, well, for some. So, here when we embrace death, that natural cycle of what wants to end and what needs to be looked at inside of us gets it space, gets it’s tending to and attention and love, where it fertilizes the soil for what’s coming up in your life and for beauty to be created in what’s coming, in what’s going to be revealed, all set to music that will support you in embodying this shift and transmitting the energies within yourself so that you can fully, with full-body, move forward into what is coming up for you in purposeful, meaningful experience.

Candice Wu 9:20

A shout out too, also Chris Spiegl, who produced and edited that experiential and spent his artistic attention to crafting the sounds and my voice to go together in a way that stimulates and invokes, conjures up what wants to come forward. You can find this experiential at CandiceWu.com/death and if you jump on now or soon, there’s a sale there for you, it is great as a gift to yourself or as a gift to clients, friends, family, people around you that might benefit from it as well. Again, that’s at CandiceWu.com/death.

Candice Wu 10:05

So this episode was super fun and there’s an added element of surprise here in this episode, where you’ll find out something about me and about Roxanne that connects us. It’s a very binding force between us of resonance.

Candice Wu 10:20

Roxanne Partridge is known for inspiring and guiding others into embodying their unique sustainable fullness. Women, menstruators, and individuals that seek a safe and healing and inclusive space to explore menstruality, sexuality, and embodied identity are empowered through her in-depth and creative approach. She just radiates juicy, soulful play and depth, and I absolutely love talking with her. She’s a healer, scholar, activist and has lectured and facilitated workshops in various locations as well as through her private practice and she’s also an advocate for equal rights to imagination, for images of female embodied experience.

Candice Wu 11:16

She’s informed by feminist post union liberational, archetypal, and eco psychological theory and practices and attends to the nuances of experience in the context of daily life, cultural and familial backgrounds, manifestations of the unconscious, such as dreams. She received her clinical hypnotherapy certification from the Santa Barbara Institute of hypnotherapy and trained with the revolutionary sex therapist, Gina Ogden, in her medicine wheel method of relational sexuality, and received her Ph.D. in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in California. Her background in holistic therapies and the arts form a creative container for deep and catalytic work.

Candice Wu 12:08

So, you’re in for a treat here. Feel free to grab a candle and a cup of tea or something that just makes you feel in your own aliveness or makes you feel in some sense of beauty, and enjoy.

Candice Wu 12:31

So, Roxanne, we’re here together. Are you there? Okay.

Roxanne Partridge 12:39

Hi. I’m here.

Candice Wu 12:43

You’re there. We both have our candles burning. I’ve got a cup of tea, and my salt light on, salt lamp on. And it’s just so delightful to be here with you today.

Roxanne Partridge 12:56

Same here.

Candice Wu 13:00

I just took a look at your Instagram and I just love looking at your Instagram like the juicy images and luscious words that you write and just feel so much from your soul and your gut and your being, that these words feel like they always in someplace in me and live in and awaken more of me and you, just your work inspires and guides people to bring forward they’re natural and wild and Goddess self and their sexual essence and who they are. I can’t wait to talk to you about this.

Roxanne Partridge 13:50

I love that that’s your experience, looking at my Instagram account. One thing I love about that platform is that it is so image-forward, you know, and having such wonderful access to art and a way for me, it feels like a way of, kind of watering the imagination for what’s possible, you know?

Candice Wu 14:21

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 14:22

To imagine like, you’re saying like a to give representation, excuse me, to parts of ourselves that we may not even fully know but sense. And you know what I mean like, to, to find an image that maybe is surprising or strange but somehow compelling and resonates with some experience, whether it’s like, you know, an experience of cyclicity an experience of like, a sexual sort of sense of identity and having it be reflected back. Because I feel like there can be such I mean, within patriarchy, right? Imagination, embodied imagination for women is often kind of stuck in a corner behind a door that says something like, you know, for reproduction only or crazy, or —

Candice Wu 15:33

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 15:33

You know, it’s just a social construct or something, you know.

Candice Wu 15:38

Right.

Roxanne Partridge 15:39

And how to, like, give it some more space and, you know, wander around and how it wants to speak. And like you said, the kind of messiness of that.

Candice Wu 15:51

Yeah, you know, there’s such a, like a cleaned-up version through patriarchy that you, I often find myself like breaking down in my mind around like, how we even like, the spaces and words were using. How we even let all of that imagination just go full out. In a way, I don’t think I’m describing this well, but I’m just thinking of like, nature, like, being out in nature and breaking down the wall of where we think that good work is or where we think we can do things and experience it in. I don’t even know if I’m making any sense to myself, but that’s what came up. And let’s just shift back to your work of menstrual sexual empowered embodiment and the depth up and out is what — ahm — These are your words and I love to hear from you how you see your work and what you do.

Roxanne Partridge 17:02

Yeah, thank you.

Roxanne Partridge 17:07

Yeah, from the depths, up and out. Some of what that means to me is well, from the depths it’s like the depths of psyche, the depths of soul, the depths of our body, is the kind of underworldly experiences that are of our unconscious, of our dream world at night when we’re sleeping, the parts of ourselves that may not have a lot of representation in our day to day lives and ways of creatively like inviting and befriending and welcoming those parts of ourselves that are in the depths, and getting to know who they are, who’s here? What do they need? What’s their story? And what happens as they begin to meet the waking life versions of ourselves. And I sometimes refer to this as this kind of like inner social justice work of getting to know —

Candice Wu 18:32

Yes, that makes so much sense.

Roxanne Partridge 18:34

You know, like, really befriending the marginalized parts of our psyche. And so that’s kind of what the depths means for me and what it’s like to come up and out of the depths, to rise up from the underworld, from the darkness, and find footing on the topsoil and be integrated into our day to day life and how that can change the landscape of things.

Roxanne Partridge 19:03

And in my experience for myself and also with the women I work with, usually what this begins to look like is a way greater experience of aliveness and like a real, full sense of direction that’s grounded in like, kind of our psychic roots, if you will.

Candice Wu 19:32

That’s beautiful.

Candice Wu 19:40

Your words here, about your paradigm of seeing where you see troublesome, emotional and behavioral symptoms, suffering, questions of identity instead of seeing it that way, you’re seeing that as an invitation into a deeper and wider understanding of your personal purpose, potential healing, transformation and embodied autonomy.

Candice Wu 20:09

I love these words and something that happened for us right before we started recording makes us all click because I was like, did I like, that sounds like something I want to try it. Would you like to share what you just —

Roxanne Partridge 20:28

Oh yes. So, you know, Candice, when I began to look at your work and listen to your podcasts and read your Instagram posts and the words on your website, I was like, so familiar and when we first arrange to talk and we scheduled a time, you know, I discovered we have, you and I have, like, the same exact birthday, and that we were both born the same year, on the spring equinox.

Candice Wu 21:11

It just blows my mind. I mean, I’ve met people with the same birthday before but not someone like you.

Roxanne Partridge 21:21

Oh my god! It was just, I mean, like I said, it’s so uncanny to me, like the modalities that you’ve been drawn to, the way the ideas that you synthesize, your emphasis as well as the embodiment and embodying your nature. And for me, my version of that is Embody Period with a dot at the end to have a little menstrual pun there, but it’s also like, yeah, embodiment full stop, you know, like —

Candice Wu 21:53

Yes.

Roxanne Partridge 21:54

That’s what this is all about. Yeah, you know, and that emergent kind of energy that is, especially in this part of the world, where we have four seasons of like, you know, coming out of winter and coming up, you know, and that kind of Persephone-Demeter type of story of emerging from the underworld and so towards life and new beginnings and restoration and all of that, your work speaks to that, feels so resonant to what is, you know, the ground of what I do as well and it’s just incredible to have this kind of day that we share together, be recognized, you know.

Candice Wu 22:51

It absolutely is. I’m just like, I’m still a little in awe about it and it’s so touching. It’s so cool to meet you. I mean, this isn’t the first time but to discover this together and to really see the resonance in your work and who you are. It’s amazing. Just amazing. Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 23:21

It was so cool. I haven’t met that many people with the same, I’ve met people like the day before or after. You know, and just to feel that, like, shared, I don’t know what it feels like for you. But for me it just, it feels like just part of the fiber of my being, you know, to like this energy that starts to stir as soon as we enter the month of March. It’s just like, bigger than me.

Candice Wu 23:50

Yeah, well, and I just had my astrology read. I have someone I work with every couple of months just to check in and see what’s going on in the planetary shifts and I didn’t, maybe like, ten years ago, eight years ago, I didn’t really believe in astrology very much or just didn’t have a connection and so much more than ever, it makes sense to me. And is so much just clicks with what’s already happening with what my astrologer says and how I already see that happening in my life. And so, when you shared this with me, it just, it brought all that up, this sense of how well orchestrated everything is in this universe and us being born on the same day within six hours apart. We have, you know, two different ways of expression and yet so much similarity and I know I have a moon in Gemini, so that must mean you have a moon in Gemini.

Candice Wu 25:00

You know, for those of you who know what that means, makes sense to why we’re here in this way, in our lives, I think.

Roxanne Partridge 25:09

Yeah. So sweet. Thanks for finding me.

Candice Wu 25:17

Maybe you found me in some way because it felt like, it felt, yeah —

Roxanne Partridge 25:23

Yeah.

Candice Wu 25:23

Both ends. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Candice Wu 25:27

Well, so that really brings me to this question of how did you get to this place on your journey today and what you do and who you are.

Roxanne Partridge 25:41

Yeah. Oh, so many ways to answer.

Candice Wu 25:46

I know it’s a giant question. That’s just not fair. Is it?

Roxanne Partridge 25:51

No, it’s okay. Let me feel into that.

Roxanne Partridge 26:00

It truly feels like a calling that has been sounding within me for as long as I can remember and what I like in that calling, being, mean and kind of fine-tuning it over the years, but it always was being in a space with women and listening to stories. And from a really early age, you know, I’m talking about elementary school years, women of all different ages would tell me their stories and I would hold it, I would sit in that space and yeah, at times, it was definitely a lot for seven years old or something till —

Candice Wu 26:58

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 26:59

But there was also a part of me that was like, Yeah, like I’m ready for this. And there’s always this kind of, I grew up with a lot of esoteric and mystical conversation around the dinner table largely held by my uncles on my father’s side of the family and some family friends. My mom has a best friend who was a midwife and she would come and stay at her house sometimes when she had a birth nearby and I would just stay at the kitchen table with them for hours and hours and listen to her stories of being at birth and her stories of her worldview of like, kind of why we’re here and the soulfulness and purposefulness of our life journey. And it all just kind of made sense to me.

Roxanne Partridge 28:04

I have always been drawn to poetry and art and soul work and the animated world. So in that way it was oh, there was a groundwork. I think that was just kind of there and I’ve definitely done a lot of different things at different points in my life and I’ve traveled a lot and I’ve wandered and when I entered into the field of depth psychology, I think that’s when everything kind of began to take the shape that things are in now.

Roxanne Partridge 28:54

When I found the field of Depth Psychology, I really felt like this kind of homecoming, I was like, okay, like this is the language that articulates what I just kind of know to be possible like this is a way that embraces my own experience, embraces what I felt was calling at me behind like the eyes and the stories of women and a lot of that like, coming from archetypal psychology and like union, psychological framework, and liberation psychology is this idea of a pluralistic psyche and that we contain like a multitude of selves within and a kind of mythopoetics of soul in personifying our different parts of ourselves, you know, like that in our social justice work I mentioned earlier and how healing and liberating it is to acknowledge that there is soul-making happening and let’s say premenstrual experience, which I suppose you know, and I say that since menstruality is an emphasis of my work and I guess another way that brought me here is being witness to really difficult menstrual experience growing up and also being witness to male or patriarchal like, reduction of a woman to her menstruality and the way that menstrual experience is so often reduced to hormones. You know, the female —

Candice Wu 31:20

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 31:21

Hysterical nature, like these types of things. And, like always knowing like, that’s just, that’s not it. Like, that’s not the full story and recognizing now like, there’s so much research that supports us that you know, these things don’t happen. Our menstrual selves don’t exist in a vacuum and that our psyche, you know that there’s, I’m going to pause right here if that’s okay.

Candice Wu 32:04

I don’t think so. I think you’re talking about the juicy stuff, you know. But yeah, you shared a lot. And yeah, let’s just take a pause together.

Roxanne Partridge 32:14

Yeah.

Candice Wu 32:23

Are you interested in sharing what that experience of being witness to a painful menstrual experience was like for you?

Roxanne Partridge 32:34

Yeah. It’s funny when I began writing my dissertation, which is largely on this idea of menstrual imagination, and I was examining what my own transference was to the topic. I had this kind of hand to forehead moment where I was like, Oh, right. You know, I mean, I thought like initially, the topic of my research shifted from embodied sexuality and this kind of relationship between sexuality and ecopsychology and our relationship to the earth and it shifted literally overnight to menstruality, on a night that I was painfully bleeding and decided to have a conversation with my uterus. And that was the turning point. But as I, you know, and when I addressed my uterus and all this pain and asked it, you know, just as I would a dream image like, Who are you? What’s here? What’s going on? What do you need? What I met was this kind of mourners, like, someone who was in mourning and had been in mourning for a very long time. And they were mourning, this image was mourning the loss of meaning. And I sat with that and I was like, I don’t know what this means, but I just need to sit next to this mourner as best as I can. And I had already started a dissertation proposal on a whole different topic and I canned it and I was like, I don’t know what this is. This is exciting. This feels necessary and hard and this is what I’m going to do.

Candice Wu 34:54

Yeah.

Candice Wu 34:57

Thank goodness.

Roxanne Partridge 34:58

Yeah. And as I started to sit with that further and be like, Okay, what do I already, what’s already here? That was the hand to forehead moment of like, oh, like, I grew up with my father pathologizing my mother and her moods, her unhappiness, essentially, you know, anything she did or say that he didn’t like.

Roxanne Partridge 35:31

He would throw under the umbrella of PMDD, premenstrual dysphoric disorder. Mind you. My father is not a psychologist or a psychiatrist —

Candice Wu 35:44

Like, wait a minute. Why is a DSM language there?

Roxanne Partridge 35:52

Yeah and this was like before the age of Google too, so I don’t know where or how he picked up this term.

Candice Wu 36:02

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 36:05

And, but he found it. And I remember one time being a little kid and my parents had argued that my mom had, like, gotten a car and drove off to like, blow off steam, get some air. I was so upset. And he said, you know, Roxanne, one day, I’ll tell you like, what this is all about, like, one day, I’ll let you in kind of on this secret. And I really held on to that. I was like, ah, like, there’s a reason for all of this. You know, there’s a reason why they fight. And I held on to it and he’s like when you get older, I’ll tell you and so years passed and I remember this and I go up to him like dad, you know, remember when you said XYZ, like what, what was like, what’s the secret? And he started laughing. He’s like, Oh, it’s just that, you know, she’s getting her period.

Candice Wu 37:04

Oh, what was your reaction?

Roxanne Partridge 37:11

Oh, I was so pissed. And I don’t know, probably about 14, 15 maybe when he told me this. And I had my period, I got my period when I was nine. So I just felt my anger in that moment, which I didn’t even really fully expressed to him because I didn’t really feel like there was a point but, it was just the silencing of what I saw of my mother’s experience. And all of her different needs that weren’t being met, her unresolved traumas like the context of her life basically, and how that was showing up in their arguments, and whether or not this was at all timed with her cycle, I don’t know. And she doesn’t know, she, as many women, didn’t pay attention to her cyclicity and, you know, didn’t know what phase she was in from another which is, you know, a very usual situation. But the story of it, you know of, oh, mom’s upset because she is hormonal, because she’s premenstrual, because since menstruation has been thought of like, the marker of womanhood. It’s because she’s a woman. And It just felt so binding to me. And —

Candice Wu 39:06

Absolutely.

Roxanne Partridge 39:08

Yeah. So that was very much a part of the day to day life of growing up and really seeing just the limited space for representation to what my mom was experiencing and just how there wasn’t any kind of befriending or curiosity or acceptance or conversation or relating going on to the different parts of herself that wanted to be met.

Candice Wu 39:45

And how different it would be if the secret that your dad wanted to share was like your mom is going through this magical time. This, like, every month, and maybe I don’t get it. But it’s like, alive and there’s life-giving quality there and who knows what’s happening in this magical beautiful way? That would have been a whole different story.

Roxanne Partridge 40:17

Whole different story, yeah, absolutely.

Candice Wu 40:21

Wow.

Roxanne Partridge 40:22

And so, that, I know, attending to that and understand what this was kind of this menstrual backdrop.

Candice Wu 40:36

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 40:37

You know, and realizing too, like, you know, it definitely exists in my family and I think it is very alive in our culture of, you know, if a woman has a strong feeling or thought or opinion, you know, how the cycle or cyclicity is like, weaponized to silence or dismiss or devalue.

Candice Wu 41:10

Yeah, it’s rampant.

Roxanne Partridge 41:14

And so, of what it’s like to make space for a completely different approach like you’re suggesting, you know, like, that magic, a whole different way of welcoming in the cycle. And so like, that’s part of like, the personal motivation for me again, knowing that, like, of the personal experience of my mom, and then just knowing how historically this is such a common story, of really making space to listen and get to know who shows up at different phases of the cycle, all phases. And, one thing that I lead my clients through is getting to know their various menstrual selves and the premenstrual self as she may show up in different ways every cycle and how sometimes she can be this kind of dark informant as I like to say, you know? Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 42:39

Her message may be raw.

Candice Wu 42:42

Yes.

Roxanne Partridge 42:42

It may be screaming. And, what it’s like not to judge her or reduce her to hormones but to really be curious about her.

Candice Wu 42:58

I think that is so important, you know, even women that, and myself, I’ve done it with that I’ve worked with and just here, you know, in my friendship circles or other arenas in psychology then there is this dismissing of what might happen, what messages we’re getting, what we’re saying, what we’re bothered by, we’re alive by, when we’re on our period. And it does get reduced to, Oh, are you on your cycle? And then it’s like, full stop period there in not a good way, in a silencing way.

Roxanne Partridge 43:44

Yes.

Candice Wu 43:45

Not the kind that like claims that and says, yeah. But yes, tell me more about who you see in your different phases of the cycle, or who your clients see.

Roxanne Partridge 44:01

Yeah. You know oftentimes as we get to know if it’s a moody menstrual self that comes through that oftentimes she’s a tremendous advocate for what like, the woman really wants or needs at that point in her life.

Candice Wu 44:24

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 44:25

And really uncompromising about it.

Candice Wu 44:28

I completely experienced that and I began to listen more on like, certain parts of my cycle because of that very raw, as you said, like, on a bash itself that screams what she knows she wants.

Roxanne Partridge 44:49

Yeah, and how it there’s this kind of thinning of the valve that happens.

Candice Wu 44:54

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 44:54

At that phase, you know, and in the body, premenstrually like, we heat up our body temperature is higher than at any other point like after ovulation. And I kind of think about this as this internal pressure cooker for our stuff, and, you know, whatever our, you know, kind of, ovulatory or post bleeding in our springtime selves who feel a little bit lighter, very focused, a little bit more maybe extroverted or go-getting and clear. You know, they move through the world in a different way, they have their gifts, they have their own style of being and the menstrual self kind of from an archetypal perspective, her style of being and what she has to offer is different and it can show up as like a desire to kind of clear, discern, get rid of things, relationships, jobs, people, you know really ground into like, Okay, this is what really works, you know, it’s kind of like an inner editor in a way.

Candice Wu 46:21

Yes.

Roxanne Partridge 46:22

And I can kind of like really there is such a resource. I mean at each phase of the cycle and I’m emphasizing the month the premenstrual on the menstrual because they’re the ones that usually get the worst rap you know that those marginalized parts of our psyche can really show up and they want attention. And you know what it’s like to befriend these marginalized parts of the psyche again, rather than silence them or just think okay, that’s like a negative mindset that I need to get rid of. But I’m just being curious like, okay, like, what is, who’s here? What does she need? What does she get? What’s important to her? And what does she get to experience when she receives what she truly needs? And typically, there’s a real softening that happens when the menstrual self gets what she needs.

Candice Wu 47:34

Yeah, I experience in a very spontaneous, quick way, like a deep breath and relief, which usually tells me like, that’s really what I need to do. And what you’re saying makes so much sense because during the menstrual cycle, we’re shedding, we’re letting something come off of us and sever from us and die. And it just is so in alignment, if that dark moody part of us, and maybe it’s not so dark and moody for some people, but that part of us that just knows exactly what needs to die and let go and it can be, at least for me a good wake up.

Roxanne Partridge 48:29

Yeah, there’s this wonderful like, death and rebirth that is in potential every cycle I feel and you know, I know some women who love to bleed and love the sensuality of the premenstrual and menstrual time, have liked the way that their body feels, the way that they want to respond to food and you know the way that they want to dress or just their whole central experience shifts and for some, it’s been like a question of like, a couple of clients I have like, really feel, really sexual, really gorgeous, really powerful when they bleed. That’s like this relief like you’re saying this, like, letting go and really being in themselves. And then the invitation being okay and how does this cycle through to the next phase?

Roxanne Partridge 49:37

You know we’re like, of how to carry that kind of gift of like, renewal and an integrated, it’s like if you think about maybe this, I think this might be a helpful analogy like if you go through, like a retreat weekend or deep ritual or initiation or something or a vision quest and it’s amazing and you have all these insights and all of these openings, and it’s like, yes. And what does this look like in the rest of my life? How do we bring this in?

Candice Wu 50:20

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 50:22

And that’s one thing that like, I’m really like, the idea of like, the sacred space, like, space is the main, I feel like it’s a big topic, space.

Candice Wu 50:35

Space for ourselves, space for discernment, you know, space to bleed, space —

Roxanne Partridge 50:47

Taking up space, exactly, occupying space, having yourself represented in cultural space, space and relationships, womb space, universe inside our bodies —

Candice Wu 51:09

That kind of space, outer space, and inner space.

Roxanne Partridge 51:14

Yeah, like all of those spaces. Ah, it’s something that I am thinking about every day and —

Candice Wu 51:23

We’re creating poetry here. Let’s just shift gears altogether.

Roxanne Partridge 51:31

Yeah.

Candice Wu 51:33

I got only next time.

Roxanne Partridge 51:36

But it’s like, you know the need for like, yeah the navigating, how to navigate all these different spaces and what wants to be integrated and what is, you know, what just wants to be its own space, you know, it’s like, to ground this is like you know, the space to just, to discern like, Okay, what am I carrying that isn’t mine, like, what have I inherited from my family, from culture, from, you know, different perspectives that I grew up with about what it is to be a woman, a person with a female anatomy, what it is to menstruate, have children, not have children, like, all these things.

Candice Wu 52:33

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 52:34

You know, to have this space to discern that and to really connect with what feels authentic and to like cultivate a fuller dynamic sense of self and not get caught into a single role. Because even if that role is true and meaningful, usually there are other roles that also want to be a part of life.

Candice Wu 53:02

The multiplicity.

Roxanne Partridge 53:03

Yeah. Right, and how to like, how to navigate the path. And so often, women will, in my experience, they’ll find a sense of spaciousness that feels really good or safe when it’s like in solitude and then it feels like well, being in a relationship or having a different kind of job may like, you know, or just like, it feels really vulnerable, the space, you know, and I’ve definitely experienced this myself like I’ve had, you know, there’s a big part of me that’s like a total lone wolf.

Candice Wu 53:53

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 53:54

And how to bring a sense of connection to my own inner multiplicity, my changing nature, my cyclicity all the different things and parts of myself that make me, how to bring that into my life and, you know, be in relationships or navigate different spaces or whatever. And it’s this kind of, I feel like we’re in this moment or this is all being very much explored.

Candice Wu 54:37

Yeah, very much. We have a lot more language for this and more connection and collaboration around it in bringing each other forward in support.

Candice Wu 54:55

So, with this, Roxanne, I know you also work with dreams a lot, and I’m wondering if there is a dream or dream fragment that has been striking you lately, or been alive with you?

Roxanne Partridge 55:22

Yeah, I’m recalling a dream. I wish I had my journal at hand. I’ve been dreaming so much lately.

Candice Wu 55:41

Have you? Wow!

Candice Wu 55:44

Yeah. Do you want to get it or just what feels right here?

Roxanne Partridge 55:48

It’s not close enough. Thank you.

Candice Wu 55:56

Take your time.

Roxanne Partridge 55:58

Yeah, there’s one in particular that I’m trying to draw up right now. It’s going to cooperate —

Candice Wu 56:04

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 56:05

Wants to show —

Candice Wu 56:06

Yes.

Candice Wu 56:16

It does have its own life, doesn’t it? Autonomy in a way. Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 56:30

Oh, I’ll go with the dream I had this morning.

Roxanne Partridge 56:34

So this morning I dreamt of coastal mountains in California that are not on fire and being in these mountains and having this wonderful view of the ocean. And there are these kinds of in the dream the language was mountain title tide pools. These like, crevices in the mountains that were once tide pools and they were filled with flowers and the California poppy, that orange wonderful poppy flower wasn’t blue. And it was really beautiful and kind of have a surreal quality and it’s this familiar kind of landscape where I’ve spent a good number of years living in California and that landscape is really dear to me. You know.

Roxanne Partridge 57:45

And I am thinking about the dream now and I had it this morning before our conversation today and I’ve been thinking about this topic of space. You know, where the Land of California has really offered me a lot of space. And I would say through being with and on the land out there when I was really kind of going deep and I did you know my graduate studies out there. It was through a kind of dreaming and thinking and wrestling with the land that I was able to find greater inner space.

Roxanne Partridge 57:48

And it’s been a few years since I’ve been to California and it was in the dream where I’m looking into these mountain top tide pools of blue poppy flowers and it felt like a blue color like, it changed from orange to blue and it was this kind of this, like, there was this sort of feeling tone of sadness and nostalgia.

Roxanne Partridge 59:17

And in the dream, I found myself saying a lot of things like, well, this is where I used to back when I was here I did this, all this kind of past tense stuff. And, I love recognizing that like, yes, like, this actual place opened up this inner space within me and I think there are, I know there are times when I long for that landscape to hold space for me. And I also know that well, you know, I’m sure I feel great if I went back to visit, that there’s something about like, the practice of space within myself, you know, no longer needs to or can or wants to be held by that particular landscape, if that makes sense, you know.

Roxanne Partridge 1:00:44

Feeling into it again, like, just taking it as a dream that came forward on the day of our talk, and embodiment and embodying our nature, embodying ourselves, period, of you know, it’s kind of like this remembrance, you know, of like, there is inner space, you know, and like, yeah, this actual place held back for you. And you’re like, you know, I’m just kind of pointing my attention towards what’s holding it for me now. You know, what are the ways of practicing and enacting and living space and all these different ways that we’re talking about right and like taking up space and holding space.

Candice Wu 1:01:46

There’s so much that’s breathing about what you’re saying and it almost made me think of this actual place, being more physical marker for a birth of your inner space, like, a home away and yet there’s this part of you that once, maybe a different embodiment of that or separation from physical, actual place, but taking that with you in a way. Those are my words but yeah, that’s just what it made me think of.

Roxanne Partridge 1:02:30

Yeah, you know and I think that’s part of where I find my own daily sense of aliveness is in these very mundane, small moments, of grounding into where I am in the Hudson Valley, and the present really. I don’t know how else to say it.

Candice Wu 1:03:15

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 1:03:15

You know, and of remembering that space is here.

Candice Wu 1:03:25

Yeah, and wherever you are.

Candice Wu 1:03:32

Thank you for sharing that.

Candice Wu 1:03:37

And I’m very excited to share with everyone, your meditation on rewilding your sexual ecology and that’ll be coming up here and link to your episode as well. Do you want to say anything about that?

Roxanne Partridge 1:03:55

Yeah, I’d love to. I mean, we’ve been talking a lot about menstrual selves. Another piece here is our sexual selves. And likewise, you know how knowing the different figures of our sexual essence can bring us home to our kind of native, wild, inner sexual landscape.

Roxanne Partridge 1:04:26

And so this offering of rewilding your sexual ecology is an invitation to journey into your inner native sexual landscape and taking multiple levels of life force, you know, Kundalini energy, arousal, desire, joy, where you feel aliveness and to see who comes through. Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 1:04:58

I’ve invited women to explore, you know, where they feel most centrally alive and the images that sometimes come through have oftentimes even nothing to do with a bedroom, you know, or a partner even, it’s like being barefoot and singing in their kitchen.

Candice Wu 1:05:02

Yeah.

Roxanne Partridge 1:05:18

It’s just like, you know, where you feel like your body just feels like, expansive. And, you know, it’s an invitation to really kind of locate that and you know, having this ecological amplification of reintroducing that wild, native sexual archetype essence species into the landscape of your life, you know, and how to have it take up space and how to have, you know, imagine it forward and to experiment in introducing reintroducing your native, wild sexual essence into your life, you know, from the day to day to your sexual pleasure, you know, everywhere.

Candice Wu 1:06:14

Everywhere. Yes. It’s really lovely. So I invite everyone to check that out. It’s some other words I wrote down where rivers and vital energy and I really liked that.

Candice Wu 1:06:32

Thank you for offering that and would you like to say anything about your hypnotherapy, the free downloads you have or the workshops that you offer in New York, and retreats, you also have one on one sessions and a million things that you’re offering that are just gorgeous, magical, and look so meaningful.

Roxanne Partridge 1:06:59

Thank you. Yeah, you can check out several free downloads of hypnotherapy practices that run 20, 30 minutes long. There’s one called Remembering Womb, which is a wonderful way to drop into your womb space with some really nurturing energy. So I always recommend that as a way to kind of befriend womb space and kind of return to yourself. I think it’s a great way to ground and there are several others there too, that you can explore and check out.

Roxanne Partridge 1:07:43

I have monthly women’s councils called Body Storm, and we’re going on a brief winter hibernation after this month but we’ll be coming back in the spring and those take the form of a talking circle that have verbal and movement visioning involved here in Hudson, New York.

Roxanne Partridge 1:08:13

And then, there’s Flame Retrieval, which is a retreat coming up in April. It’s a weekend retreat held here in Hudson. And really ends up body, soul, spirit, heart, mind, kind of initiation into tending your inner flame and retrieving your inner flame if it feels lost or low. And whether that, you know, be showing itself through creative blocks or shut down in the body and really welcoming in wherever you are so often I hear from women like, is it okay if I bring my story here? Is it too negative? Is it too dark? Am I going to overwhelm me? Oh, is this too much?

Roxanne Partridge 1:09:14

And to all of that, I say, Welcome. Come, you know, as this shameful, you know, and there’s such a vital life force in that darkness. And so, really welcoming that not only in, yeah, definitely the Flame Retrieval retreat, but, and all of these different doorways into embodying yourself fully in your life.

Candice Wu 1:09:51

Thank you. That’s wonderful. And where can people find that?

Roxanne Partridge 1:09:55

EmbodyPeriod.com/workshops

Candice Wu 1:10:00

Thank you, Roxanne. I feel like we could talk for days and a long time, and is there anything now that’s coming up that feels vital or alive to share or to say as we close here today.

Roxanne Partridge 1:10:25

I think something that I would love to water the ears of listeners with is that soul is revealing itself to you through your embodied experience, whether it’s menstrually or sexually related or behavioral or story, to remember and to be curious about how is soul showing up through us? What is soul expressing through us and to turn towards yourself just as you’d want to turn towards a beloved, just as you’d want a beloved to turn towards you, to turn towards yourself with curiosity and openness and to invite yourself through these moments back to yourself?

Candice Wu 1:11:45

Thank you. I hear that. I hear you.

Roxanne Partridge 1:11:53

Thank you so much.

Candice Wu 1:11:54

Thank you for watering my ears.

Roxanne Partridge 1:11:57

Yeah, I wish we could talk so much more

Candice Wu 1:12:00

Wonderful.

Roxanne Partridge 1:12:01

We will. All the correlations between your work and list could go on and on.

Candice Wu 1:12:08

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Roxanne and it’s been fabulous to have you. It’s been so good to be here. Thank you.

Candice Wu 1:12:24

Wow, I was so grateful to have you, Roxanne, on the show and I learned so much and just your vibrancy calls forward so much in me that remembers myself and imagination and bringing forward my process and really embracing it. You are this validating force for embracing what is real and true and alive.

Candice Wu 1:12:58

Thank you so much and all of you out there listening, thank you for joining us. I hope this was inspiring to you as well and be sure to listen to Roxanne’s meditation on rewilding your sexual ecology, which is in connection with this episode but will come out later this week if you’re subscribed.

Candice Wu 1:13:17

If you want to go straight to their website and find it right now you can find it at CandiceWu.com/roxanne.

Candice Wu 1:13:26

Before we go and end with a couple of reverberations of Roxanne’s work, I want to invite you to connect with me on my newsletter that comes out once or twice a month at CandiceWu.com/embody, where you can receive updates about where I am in the world and what’s happening with the horses or receive self — notes and updates about the podcast and be sure to check out Roxanne’s work at embodyperiod.com.

Candice Wu 1:13:55

So I want to echo her words: How is soul showing up through this? What of soul is showing through my experience? And also to ask you, what is your story? What is the backdrop of your menstrual story?

Candice Wu 1:14:17

Thanks so much for joining us today on the Embody podcast and see you next time.

Candice Wu 0:00

This experiential with Roxanne Partridge is a beautiful invitation to rewild your sexual self.

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.

Welcome, and it’s wonderful to have you here. I’m so excited to introduce Roxanne Partridge to you here. She has her full podcast at CandiceWu.com/roxanne where we talk all about befriending the many parts of ourselves that come through the menstrual and premenstrual cycle, where we explore the invitations of what life shows us, where life shows us about the soul, how to be curious and connect with the menstrual backdrop of your life, feeling alive and in tune with the darkness and the depth of who we are, to bring our own magic to the surface, all of that is just wonderfully enlivened through conversation with Roxanne so be sure to check that out. And now, without further ado, is Roxanne.

Roxanne Partridge 1:53

Welcome to rewilding your sexual ecology, Dr. Roxanne Partridge of Embody Period and I’ve created this hypnotherapy experience for you to deepen into your inner sexual wilderness landscape, gently moving beyond the layers of conditioning we have all received around sexuality and meeting authentic pleasure, the deep joy of your embodied essence.

Please go ahead and lie down if you haven’t done so already. Get as comfortable as possible, making sure your body feels totally supported from head to toe. Pull a blanket over you if you’d like to feel cozy, as well as to help you deepen into your body, with that extra weight of a blanket.

Settle in, settle into the space, placing your hands over your pelvis.

Good, and now taking several deep breaths.

This is your time, so relax into it. Letting your breath deep and down under the palms of your hands and notice what it’s like to deepen your breath down beneath your belly and to bring it all the way down into your pelvis. Letting your pelvis receive your deep, steady, relaxed breathing right now and allowing your breath and your attention, your awareness to nourish the space between your fingers, the space beneath your palm, bringing warmth and is and relaxation here in between your hips.

And as you do this, your hips begin to relax and open, letting your legs loose, feet at ease, opening from your pelvis down and out.

Eyes closed, eyelids heavy, muscles of your face, relax. Your lips part gently as your jaw relaxes and your head becomes heavy and perhaps even droops a little, the energy of your forehead, your third eye, beginning to draw downwards and inwards.

As your attention moves down, your body relaxing, arms, elbows, back, and shoulder muscles relaxing into your core.

Good.

Feel and imagine a channel of energy now between your third eyes space and your pelvis, your root. Feel and imagine this core of energy moving from your third eye down to your pelvis.

Imagine and feel this as a river. A river that is tidal and can move in both directions. And right now, we’re moving from your third eye down into your pelvis. So feel and see this channel of energy run through your core, connecting your breath from one place to the other.

As we begin to take a journey down this river of energy, beginning here in your third eye, this place of inner visioning, feeling and sensing yourself afloat on a raft or a wonderful tube drifting down this easeful, relaxing river of your energy. Feeling yourself move clearly. This water runs with ease. It runs fresh and clear, gently drifting down through your head and neck, visualizing and sensing yourself as you do this moving down this river and opening up your inner visioning to the landscape.

Beginning to perceive and sense what’s around you on all sides. Noticing the shorelines and what’s here. Perhaps there are trees, fields or mountains, notice what’s here in your own, in our bioregion, as you drift down through your heart space and your solar plexus space and down into your belly, and down beyond into space beneath your palm, the inner place of your sexual ecology coming to stillness here.

Then finding a place for yourself to rest whether it be upon the shore, on a rock, the sand, the grass, bringing yourself to a place of stillness here in the base of your sacks and breathing deeply.

Put the organs and tissues of your sexual ecology. A vital place of your fertile creativity, power, essence, and joy as you land here in this domain. Noticing the air, the light, what grows here.

You meet the homeplace of an inner vital figure of your joy, of your wild, free, sexual essence and she shows herself to you now. A Mary Jane from the landscape, perhaps she comes from the river itself. Perhaps she comes out of the trees or on the horizon and she makes her way towards you and notice how she shows her mood, her way of moving. Perhaps she’s dancing. Perhaps she’s moving slow and steady, arms open like a goddess. Perhaps she kind of just floats in a completely enchanting way over the landscape.

Notice her energy and her style right now and she comes to you and takes your hands and pulls you lovingly into her orb of energy, introducing you to her way of being. And in this moment, her way of being becomes your way of being and together you amplify and expand this essential, vital energy throughout your entire being, throughout this entire landscape and body place, your whole pelvis illuminated and energized and nurtured.

As the two of you become one in this life energy, feel yourself here needing this source of your wild sexual essence, knowing that this lives organically, natively within you and now that you know that this is what lives here, you can bring this energy forward, upriver, traveling with it throughout your entire being, introducing this vital energy that is wild and native to your sexuality, to your sensuality, to your creative essence, introducing, reintroducing this native essence to the fullness of your being, welcoming its power into your solar plexus, welcoming this life force into your heart, feeling your heart expand with its presence of your wildly authentic pleasure, feeling as you continue to move up the river, feeling your sexual essence meet your throat and open your throat and hear and feel the words, the language of this native sexual energy.

What did she say? What is she sing to the world? And feeling you rise and travel further up and out into your third eye, opening your third eye, with her presence that is yours and noticing how she sees the world and your place in it and how you body your wildness forward.

Imagining right now and seeing, knowing it to be true, how you move forward in the world but the wildness of your sexual ecology moving through you, allowing yourself to feel completely energized by this throughout your entire body, feeling it in your toes, your hands, feeling it in the sides of your face, perhaps now, even smiling a little, breathing and expanding into this life force energy and noticing how the landscape of your waking life completely ships in small and significant ways now that this organic, wild, native source of your sexuality has been realized.

Deep breath.

Feeling into the palms your hands, turning the palms of your hands now, upwards and outwards, expanding your arms, opening your arms into a great big stretch of wings, bringing them above your head, stretching out your legs and feet, feeling your pelvis warm, hips open, chest open, back, maybe even arching a little, let your head fall back, mouth open in total pleasure. Expand it and your wild sexual ecology.

Thank you for the vital rewilding work. Body for wild throughout the rest of your day and the rest of your life.

Candice Wu 20:20

As you come out of this experience with Roxanne, take your own time to come back to your surroundings. Support yourself in any way you need to. This is all about you and what you need right now to support yourself, to support your sexual being and as Roxanne invites us to, I invite you also to see how this experience can be brought forward into your life. Thanks so much for taking the time today.

Candice Wu 0:00

This week is part three of the whole conversation around taking, receiving and giving, and the balance of each of these. In this conversation, I explore who is the part of you that’s giving, and the balance of when you give and what that does in a relationship as to its relation to when you receive our take, how to balance relationships in terms of taking, giving and receiving, and what happens in the dynamic. I also talk about self-love and giving to the self as well as how that relates to our dynamics in relationships on the human level.

Candice Wu 0:42

This episode is part three of taking, receiving and giving and the balance of each of these as well as cleansing our dynamics and believes that are in relation to these three ways of being in life. I share some of my own thoughts on the balance of taking, receiving and giving as well as the thoughts of Bert Hellinger from Love’s Hidden Symmetry. Bert Hellinger is the founder of family constellations and explores these hidden dynamics.

Candice Wu 1:18

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 1:31

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 1:53

It’s so important to let die what needs to die. If you think about rotting fruit and you just let it sit there and you don’t throw it out or buried in the earth, it just sits there and keeps on rotting and decaying, and often what is within us that wants to be released and felt, and honored to release or end can fester. What wants to complete itself can be overdue. Have you ever had a relationship where it just needed to end or change in some way or something needs to be acknowledged or felt, and because that delayed or it was maybe hard to do so it got worse?

Candice Wu 2:43

Well, this is my experience at times and when I first experienced the death meditation by Ana T. Forrest, through her work of Forrest Yoga, and healing, it was really profound. It was a simulation of death, which brought me to face the experience of if I were to die in 12 hours, what would I want to say do or feel and experience? What would it mean to live? And so, with that experience, I have found inspiration and adapted the Ally with Death Experiential, which is a way to experience that simulation of death through an audio experience, and through prompts that ask of you to look at what needs to end in your life, what belief sets are you carrying that really weigh you down or create suffering, what in your outer world needs to happen, what needs to be said, what needs to be acknowledged, so that you can fully live life and come back to your playful, intuitive, creative, sensing, curious self. And if that’s not something you know, that part of you is, curious and playful parts of you, maybe that doing this can allow that to come and shine through.

Candice Wu 4:12

So, my adaptation of this experience includes the body it includes what happens inside as you’re feeling this, what are you noticing in your body, emotions, images. This is my own creation of what has helped me in partnering with the energy of death to let things truly release and die, and to imagine a death, and to let that happen so that I can find renewal and revitalization.

Candice Wu 4:47

If you’re interested in this experience, it’s fantastic for the winter or for your moon cycle or a phase of the moon cycle, in general, or anytime you’re feeling way down. stuck, anxious, depressed. If there are things you know you need to face or something that seems like it wants to be acknowledged within you, this is a great opportunity to experience it. It’s a 75-minute audio experience, and it’s full of stirring and provocative music that’s handpan music by a friend of mine, Larry St. Germain. He’s an artist and a musician, and he was so excited to take on this project and just poured his heart and soul into the fine-tuning, the mood and the energy that hold space for us to truly look in places, in the dark places, and face what it is that we need to really honor.

Candice Wu 5:52

So, that’s music by Larry Saint Germain, and it’s produced and edited by Chris Spiegl, who’s the editor of the Embody Podcast, and he did a fantastic job of amalgamating his chunks of sound to fit right in with my voice and fill in and hold the space for. You can find this experience at CandiceWu.com/death.

Candice Wu 6:17

Hi, everyone. Thanks so much for joining me today. This is going to be an interesting conversation. I’m literally in a robe because it’s cold here in Michigan. I have a cup of tea. I hope you’ll join me with something comforting to yourself in this topic of giving. It’s really beautiful to be able to give to yourself and receive what you’re giving to yourself. That to me means taking time for self-care and doing that in a way that’s woven through your day. So, that is part of you. Not just something you set aside to do, which is a beautiful thing, too, but having this cup of tea here, and receiving the benefit, really feeling into how that feels to give to yourself, the pleasure it is or where it feels comforting or soothing. So, I invite you to do that today. Whatever it is that would make you feel soothed in this moment, whether that’s a little bit of contact to your body or getting a blanket or if you’re in transit, to do something that supports your body in feeling more comfortable and cared for.

Candice Wu 7:43

I just spent about five days in New York on a visit, and so glad to be home in this cozy place in Michigan. There’s snow on the ground. It’s the week of Thanksgiving here in the United States and I just love this cozy feeling before the holidays, but I also want to acknowledge that I didn’t always feel that way, and I know for many people, holidays are a hard time, and that can relate to all sorts of family dynamics, belonging or expectations, but also, hurts and wounds of the past. So, here, as you’re coming towards any holidays of your culture or your ethnicity, maybe it’s a chance to look at what hurt or wounds have been here, what’s the feeling you have now and just take a moment to honor those rather than being harsh on yourself or critical or trying to push these parts of you away. And also, it might be a time to push these parts of you to the side in a sense of, if you need to have some boundaries around what you’re feeling to move towards what’s pleasurable as we started in the beginning of this podcast.

Candice Wu 9:06

So, I would like to just jump into this podcast today. The last couple of weeks, I’ve been talking about taking, taking what’s given to us, taking what we need, taking up space, and all of the dynamics underneath it that may prevent us from really being able to take what’s ours. We’ve also been talking about taking versus receiving and the active feeling around taking, the active assertion that’s needed to take, to take our place in our lives and in our ancestry. And also, the topic of receiving and how it is to receive, to receive love to receive all the things that are coming our way, and how we can step into by taking our place, step into all of what it is that is here for us, that is specific perfectly designed for us to receive in this life and to take in this life.

Candice Wu 10:06

I’ve talked about taking our place as a way of taking your true position in your family lineage, and also, in yourself, in who you are, the essence of you. What I didn’t talk about is taking our parents as they are, and how much that is a part of and the essential groundwork to being at peace in ourselves and loving ourselves, and feeling whole. Before I jump into that, if you want to hear the previous conversations, you can find that at CandiceWu.com/taking and CandiceWu.com/receiving. That’s part one into and they’re also linked to the show notes of this episode. If you’d like to catch up with that, you can start and that’s totally fine, too, I think. This conversation it all loops together.

Candice Wu 11:06

So, taking our parents as they are. I often hear people saying I don’t want to be like my parents or having criticisms of their parents, rejecting them in some way, and what that does, I know from my own experience, in myself and with my clients is that there’s a way in which that rejection holds the place marker for what we feel and what our young self feels or has felt or needs to feel, and that can be this beacon to where it is that our soul wants us to heal. And at the same time, if we leave it there, as we leave it there, there’s a way that we reject who we are in ourselves. There is a way I reject myself if I reject my mother or some piece of my mother.

Candice Wu 12:06

If we go towards the spiritual truth of the wholeness of who we are, we are all possibility. We are capable of every way of being, and if I reject this certain part of my mother, maybe the way that she is stubborn or something like that, then I also reject that part of me that has stubbornness or is possibly stubborn. And when I do that, there is a constriction inside of me. There’s some part of me that blocks itself off to the wholeness of all energy, which also relates to pleasant feelings and pleasant qualities or more desirable, societally desirable qualities. Our soul wants us to be multidimensional and multifaceted, and in every single way of being, so that if we ever need that way, we’re able to do it, and we have the flexibility, but also, that that’s just the essence of our fullness, period.

Candice Wu 13:23

That is my belief at least, and what I have felt is that when I’ve embraced that stubbornness in me, then I’m able to see myself with more humanity, compassion, and yet, I know why it is that I may have rejected this quality in my mother because perhaps it brought me hurt or in relation to her as a child. And so, these are these place markers, these rejections of our parents, place markers for what we ourselves are wanting to heal and look at, that’s why people around us are our teachers, especially when it brings us an unpleasant experience, just that they’re holding something for us to learn.

Candice Wu 14:15

So, taking our parents as they are, is challenging because it often requires us to feel the feelings that we have in relation to the way that they are, and we often needed our parents to hold that space or wished that they could to hold that space so that it felt safe enough to feel those feelings and that isn’t always there. So, it creates a bit of a bind, in a way, but as adults, we can find resource and other ways to support us in coming to that true acceptance, not just acceptance, but agreement of who our parents are, and when I feel in that place of full agreement of who my parents are with all of what and who they are, and what came before them, it’s a bigger picture than just them. I feel much more in agreement with myself.

Candice Wu 15:15

So, instead of saying, “Oh, my father’s a jerk,” and leaving it there, where my judgment, our perception is distorted because of my emotions, which is natural in a way or we tend towards that, where’s there a bit of neutrality, that may be the truth is he was absent, but that there is a greater reality. We’re truth to that. Where’s the compassion to see where that originated, that it didn’t start with him as Mark Wolynn, a family constellations writer and facilitator says it didn’t start with you in his book. Whether there’s a greater experience of the family system that makes its way down to me, where my experience of hurt has a place. And can we allow ourselves the grace of feeling what we feel and what we need to acknowledge that human experience not to ignore that to honor it, but also see farther back, and to honor a bigger picture? Jim Kolakowski, my first yoga teacher and spiritual teacher I really admire, he was on the podcast as well. He says if we could see the bigger picture, like the biggest picture, we wouldn’t be upset anymore. This we would understand so much more.

Candice Wu 16:44

So, that’s a preface to this conversation of giving is that piece of taking our parents as they are, that I didn’t talk about in that first conversation of taking and it’s so easy essential, and I’ll mention Bert Hellinger later in this episode, which is part of why I recall that piece that I wanted to share that’s so essential to the family constellations work, and the gift that constellations can bring is this very powerful honoring of who the people are behind us that give us the freedom and ability to honor ourselves, and that’s the preface to this conversation of giving.

Candice Wu 17:39

Giving, I have said in the first podcast of taking that it can be often overrated, like we just seem to hear messages or at least I do, that we should give and give, and give and give, and yet, somehow that doesn’t quite feel right. I often find that giving can come out of an incongruence with love, that it’s coming from another place. Have you ever received something from someone with a slight feeling of something more coming with it? Maybe there’s guilt coming with it or obligation or some feeling of debt or there’s, I don’t know, pity coming with it, sympathy, and maybe that’s okay, but this conversation here is to take a look at what it does come with for you in terms of you giving and how you receive or take in those relationships.

Candice Wu 18:44

I’ve certainly used giving as a way of trying to receive validation and love, belonging, and that comes from my early imprints of life that if I gave of myself, not just in gestures or gifts, but if I gave up myself, if I gave up who I was and became someone for someone else, then I would feel worthy. It went to the core it was like my existence was to give, my existence was for others, and that became extremely painful, over time, as I became aware of it. It did help me survive, and so, I appreciate that I survived and I’m able to look at all the pain that came out of that in a very loving way at this point in life, and over time.

Candice Wu 19:46

How does that sit with you to does anything come up for you now, as this conversation opens your relationship with giving, your relationship with what it means to give and what happens when you give? What you might expect or desire? And this is all happening, perhaps, on a subtle level. So, even if you’re like, “No, no, no, I’m pretty clear about that,” you might consider looking a little deep, more deeply and more nuanced, and just see what turns out for you.

Candice Wu 20:29

When I think about giving some words come up with giving time, giving attention, giving energy, gifts, foods, cards, offering attention, hugs, kisses, love, compliments, giving thanks, giving up, giving myself, what that means. When we give what feels like too much only we can know what that is. There’s a polarity. There’s a polarity on the other side of giving too much is asking for too much. What you want from other people, what is underneath that giving might be something that you are wishing for and drawing for energetically.

Candice Wu 21:31

Now, I want to read an excerpt from Love’s Hidden Symmetry. What makes love work in relationships, and this is a book by Bert Hellinger, Gunthard Weber, and Hunter Beaumont. Three very prominent family constellations, people and Bert Hellinger being a founder of this modality and work, culminating the work, and I’m on page 12, 13 and 14 if you have the book or if you’re hoping to get it, but here is this conversation about the conscience and balance in giving and taking.

Candice Wu 22:11

And they say, “Our relationships and our experiences of guilt and innocence begin with giving and taking. We feel entitled when we give, we feel obligated when we take. The oscillation between entitlement and obligation is the second fundamental dynamic of guilt and innocence in every relationship. It serves all our relationships since both giver and taker know peace only when both have given and taken equally. When we receive something from someone, we lose our innocence and our independence. When we take, we feel indebted and beholden to the giver. We feel this obligation is discomfort and pressure, and we try to overcome it by giving something back. We can’t truly take anything without feeling the need to give, and taking is a form of guilt. Innosense in the service of this exchange becomes manifest as the comfortable feeling of entitlement that comes when we take fully and when we give a little more in return, then we have taken, we feel innocently carefree and light-hearted when we’ve taken fully, and our needs have been satisfied and when we’ve also given fully in return.”

Candice Wu 23:31

So, in this conversation, what we’re talking about is that when we accept, we take from someone we receive, that it’s typical to feel that sense of guilt and obligation, and that the balance of some energy exchanges is off-balance, but it can be balanced when we give back. I find that to be true and the very basis of relationships of human, of the humankind, which we are here for or we are here in, and where he says, this statement, “it’s better for you to feel obligated to me than for me to feel obligated to you,” is something that really rang true for me when I started to look at my relationships with others and how I was using giving in order to gain something.

Candice Wu 24:29

So, this is beyond just a balance and exchange of energy that’s natural and clean of other things. What I find is that giving is often connected with these other things, of wanting validation and wanting more in return than just a thank you, and wanting someplace of our belonging to be secured by what we’re giving and what we get out of that. With that idea that “it’s better for you to feel obligated to me than for me to feel obligated to you,” they talk about the helper syndrome and say that such self-centered striving for freedom from need is fundamentally hostile to relationships. Whoever wants only to give without taking clings to an illusion of superiority, rejects the bounty of life and denies equality to his or her partner. Others soon want nothing from those who refuse to take and become resentful and withdraw from them.

Candice Wu 25:41

So, when giving becomes so weighted, and someone does not take it all, and I see this when I hear compliments being given back and forth like someone says, “Oh, you did such a good job,” and this was like a team collaborative effort and you did such a good job and the other person says, “No, you did” or they like, they contribute all the credit to the other person back to the other person. It just feels like they’re tossing this ball and back and forth, and it’s getting bigger and bigger, but nobody will really hold it, and to really hold it, perhaps, needs that acceptance of some level of guilt or some discomfort.

Candice Wu 26:23

When I look at all this, my reaction is that yes, I have found this to be true, but also that it’s mixed up with those early dynamics of what we needed from our parents, and we carry around any leftover needs to other relationships. And so, when that ball gets bounced back and forth with more, more need for validation, and instead of just accepting it, we give it to the other person and we hope that they’ll take it, but we hope that they’ll take it and give us something back, and yet, we still can’t take that. I’m describing something very particular which may or may not be part of your experience, but I wonder if you see this in your life or in other people, in yourself. We are the places that it’s very hard to receive and take. Even just a compliment, just to accept it fully. Do you bounce it back to somebody else? Is there a feeling of obligation or guilt? Are you able to feel that and hold that or do you stay in the innocent place where in a way you require others to feel that guilt or obligation instead of you?

Candice Wu 27:53

And maybe guilt and obligation or not the right words for what’s being bounced back and forth, I can imagine others’ feelings there, but there’s this quality of a very basic human need that’s being tossed back and forth that is also being denied back and forth. So, going back to Love’s Hidden Symmetry and what these authors suggest is that a full exchange, fully receiving and fully taking is what creates a very equal balance in relationships.

Candice Wu 28:31

Can you fully receive and fully take? There’s a way that neutralizes and doesn’t let it bounce back and forth, but there’s a place for it to absorb in and to build more. They also talk about when reciprocity is impossible, for example, when the power dynamic is in a way that you’re not meant to or that it isn’t possible to for things to be equal in a give and take, for example, parents to children or when someone is very sick, and they really cannot give back in a certain way, and the answer might be to give it forward, give it forward or to thank and acknowledge that this is something, a gift that one cannot give back. And often that also balances that given take.

Candice Wu 29:37

So, I see this in many relationships, and also, with giving to yourself, with self-love, with healing, with healing the parts of me that have wanted and needed from other people, I’ve come to find a different place, a lighter place where that giving doesn’t ask for as much from other people, and I don’t know if it’s selfless giving, there’s this common conversation or pressure in society to be selfless when you give and not expect anything in return. I think that also comes from very deep philosophies, a spirituality of many kinds, and we have to be careful about that because when we fake it, it becomes this underlying, unconscious or energetic or pushed down, repressed dynamic. And we do make ourselves better than human. In that way, we say we’re not subject to those human desires that we actually have, that we’re pushing down and hiding, and we will pretend that we don’t need anything, and yet, it acts on this unspoken level that can be visceral and palpable.

Candice Wu 31:04

But I do believe that there is a place of selfless giving or giving without expectation, but it comes with earning it. It comes with really looking and feeling through, and having the capacity to feel through where we use giving, taking or receiving to feel belonging or feel worth or to reject it or to ask for it, and what those three x indicate as far as those young dynamics or maybe even past life dynamics that come into this life.

Candice Wu 31:48

I have this view, also, because when I work with horses, I may have told this story in another podcast, but I can see this clear reflection of the places in me or the times in me that I want something back when I give. So, I give a carrot to a horse, and there are some days that I feel like, “Yep, just giving it to them and they’ll enjoy it. However, they enjoy it. Maybe they’ll drop it to the ground even, maybe they don’t want it or maybe they gobble it up and just walk away.” And I’m fine with that. That just is satisfying in itself, but when I first started giving food to horses, I could see that I wanted something back. I wanted them to love me. I wanted them to cuddle with me and give me some sort of loving attention that said, “I like you and I honor, I value you and you’re something to me.” And of course, when they just grabbed the apple out of my hand and walked away and ate it, and didn’t look back, there was something in me that had to look at my own experience in what I was projecting onto that horse, those needs that I was expecting them to fulfill for me.

Candice Wu 33:18

So, working with horses gives me this very clean look at how I can give and not expect, and I don’t know that working with horses is free of the balance of give and take, especially in this setup of when horses are under the care of humans and there is a power dynamic, but it gives me a bit of a cleaner look than most human relationships do. So, it might be a fun exercise for each of us if we gave to someone, if we give a gift or if we give a compliment or give our time and energy, and they just experience it however they experience it and don’t say anything, not even, “Thank you” or, you know, they take it and then receive it. What would we or what would you expect from them in those moments? Would you expect a gracious “thank you?” Would you expect something later in return?

Candice Wu 34:29

I think it’s just important to recognize this level of who we are, and perhaps, how that’s tied to a younger self or another part of us that really needs something, and that actually the kindness that we do to both ourselves and others, when we honor what’s truly there in our desires, we honor our humanity and we clean up the dynamics that are within us, that are between us from these things that we push down and secretly asked for.

Candice Wu 35:09

So, another way to look at this is to look at the opposite. When you receive or when you take, is there a level of your own guilt or unworthiness coming up that you don’t deserve that or feel uncomfortable taking it? Does that ask more of someone else when you reject it or when you slightly bounce it back the other way or fully do that? To you play into the experience that giving means that someone holds a debt to you and that you hold a debt to someone else when you receive? I could feel that very palpably. In my experience in the past that when people gave, I felt so uncomfortable, and that I had to almost immediately give back something or else I wasn’t worthy of that initial giving, I wasn’t worthy of being in a relationship, and how much tension and anxiety was written in that.

Candice Wu 36:23

And so, if you receive something in this way, what does it mean about when you give? What are you asking others for? Is there a way that you’re asking for a favor, care or love, and how much of it? Because it’s okay to ask for care and love. It’s okay to ask for validation. It’s okay to want these human things. How much of that is a healthy level in your adult life, and how much of that is your child’s need? And how much of that asks from another place of a past life or fulfilling, balancing out something from the past life? All of It’s okay. For me, I just rather know where it’s coming from and how much I’m asking of someone, and when I acknowledge that, it seems to go better, for me and the other person. It almost feels like, this, it’s better when we acknowledge that this is a giant boulder rather than pretending it’s a rock and it feels like a boulder when I ask someone to hold that for me or move it from one place to another.

Candice Wu 37:43

There are very subtle ways that we are asking for more or we’re asking for something and not claiming it, and this conversation here, for me, it’s very interesting to just look at that, and clear up some of those things to know where I’m asking of others, something more than perhaps, the relationship can hold or wants to hold, and to be able to give some of those things to myself so that there’s less burden on my relationships, and there’s more delight, and there’s more loving, true acts of loving that I can receive and give, and holding myself. And when I stay unconscious to it all, it just seems like there’s some level of action that has a pull in the relationship that I’d rather know about than not.

Candice Wu 38:52

So, how do we align with a truly loving act of giving and receiving, a delight in the act of it, like, delighting and how the horse just takes that carrot and does what he wants with it, rather than expecting them to do something specific with it or after. My experience, also, comes from Vedic science, where one of my favorite concepts is Pragya, and that is the concept of pure action, complete action, meaning, when you do any action, it comes so connected, it comes out of an intention that’s so connected and clear, and whole that is conscious. An action that comes from why you’re doing it, and all of us or as much of us is in that action as possible, then that action does not need outcomes or fruits of that action in order to feel complete.

Candice Wu 40:10

There are many concepts in Vedic science and philosophy around “action that does not rely on the fruits of that action to fulfill itself”, and the beautiful thing is when that happens, typically, the outcomes and fruits of that labor are quite abundant, but without the pressure on that to come to fruition. So, Pragya, this experience of complete action can be applied to giving when we give, we just delight. We can just delight in the act of giving and feel complete in that, but if there are parts of us, our younger self, other parts of us that want and that don’t feel complete in it and that want something more than that will play itself out, too, so, even though we think that we are complete in our giving or in our action in that moment, there might be unconscious parts or subtle aspects of us that are playing out or it might be conscious. The more we can hold it in our consciousness, the more I can hold my younger self’s hand, and give my younger self what it needs, instead of expecting someone else to give it. Then that action feels complete or more complete, as complete as it can.

Candice Wu 41:53

Not sure if there’s ever a time that one is fully, fully, fully conscious of every single thing, but we continue to unfurl and see more of ourselves as the days go on, and when we look at this dynamic, it is a paradigm and dynamic we live in, at certain times, and we don’t have to, so there’s something more, there’s a different way of being, there’s that human reality of what we wish for and wished for, and where that comes from, and there’s also a level of self-loving where we can give to ourselves so that that isn’t expected in between a relationship, but that doesn’t make us a place where we do that doesn’t make us superior and not needing anyone at all, not needing others to give to us at all, not needing love or validation from anyone at all that can be so violent, on the other hand. So, where’s that balance for you?

Candice Wu 43:12

Another way that I notice what is tied in and entangled with giving and taking is how do I feel when I don’t give, and if others are giving. There was a time in grad school that we were asked to bring food to share, and I did it. I think I was too tired or didn’t have time, and then I just thought, “Oh, forget it. It’ll be fine.” But when I got there, and everyone had brought something and I didn’t, I felt so guilty, and I think that might be what Bert Hellinger, Gunthard Weber, and Hunter Beaumont were talking about in this book, Love’s Hidden Symmetry, that you feel the guilt when you take, and I remember feeling in that moment, “Well, can I exercise the feeling of taking and receiving without having given here? Am I able to just allow this basic human experience of taking and receiving?” And I noticed that that might allow others to take also and not always have to give, that kind of breaks up the dynamic of the back and forth, but it was also my way of justifying that I should just try to take, but that I could separate taking, and this experience of only taking and not giving from defining my worth or feeling judgment about myself, and then I can also separate someone else’s worth or any judgment from when they just take and accept without giving back.

Candice Wu 45:05

Is this something you resonate with? Have you experienced when you don’t give? What happens there? What thoughts go through your mind — judgments, feelings, sensations? What impulses happen? So, for me to be in the wholeness of everything, I think that level of self-loving as well as acknowledging the human level of what I desire, need, and the young parts of me that desire and need, holding all of that in this sphere of what I can see and look at, gives me the best place to have lighter interactions and clean up my ways of giving and receiving, and taking.

Candice Wu 45:56

For me, that gives me a way to feel in alignment and congruence with the way I’d like to be in this life and the way I’d like to relate to others. So, both feeling that self-loving, fulfilled, that is earned, and noticing indicators of where there are unconscious places that I asked for more than I’m claiming or that I asked for something in return and continue to find more and more subtle layers of worthiness, feeling worthy of taking and receiving, feeling worthy of giving and not expecting others to be of certain way as they receive it or don’t receive it, and this interesting place where if others asked more of me when they give me something if I can sense that or if there’s a wish on their side that something is returned. Do I want to play into that dynamic? Do I want to name it? Do I want to just acknowledge it internally? What’s the most loving thing to do in that moment for myself and others or what do I want to do and play with and experiment with? We don’t have to live in the same dynamic as someone asserts towards us.

Candice Wu 47:32

So, what comes up for you now, at the end of this conversation, in this balance of giving and taking, and what’s tied up in your dynamics, as we approach Thanksgiving in the United States, even in our saying thanks. How can we do that in a more genuine and full way? And if that’s challenging, being compassionate and gentle with ourselves to look at what’s there, what’s embedded in that, what’s embedded in the impulse to give back right away if that’s what we feel, or to not even take it at all. Is your “thank you” way of saying, “No, I can’t accept this.” Why do you say that? Or you shouldn’t have. What does that say? And to have that loving for yourself that just allows all of it to be experimental and playful, and a way to see more of ourselves, because we’re all in this, we’re all experiencing some of these dynamics somewhere, because we are human, and this is our playground to explore other ways we can share and assert ourselves, and receive and relate.

Candice Wu 49:12

So, this Thanksgiving, I want to give thanks to myself for the grace in that playfulness and curiosity, and exploring, doing it without judgment if possible, and just loving myself where that judgment does come up, and I invite you to do the same, and I also want to send a very big thanks from my heart for all of you out there that listened to the podcast, that share it with other people that feel inspired naturally, and also, those that are supporting the podcast in other ways by giving some money, financial contribution to nourish the podcast on the back end, and to keep it going in that way. This goes back all the way to the beginning of when I started the podcast of why or from what place I was doing the podcast.

Candice Wu 50:17

I actually felt like this was in a lot of ways for me, like a gift to myself that I could just have this platform to express things, to push my own edges, and share things that have been harboring inside of me, but also ideas and knowledge, and practices that I wanted to just put out there in some format. And people would ask me, does it cost you money? Or are you getting anything in return? Is that a good marketing platform? Things like that, like people in the business world.

Candice Wu 50:56

I feel that I really ran with this Vedic concept and philosophy of pure action, of being in congruence with the clear and pure intention of why I wanted to do this podcast, which wasn’t to expect some outcomes, but it was the action of doing it just for doing it and the delight of that, that this podcast has actually given me many returns and other ways, and all of you have been a part of that, just by receiving and giving me feedback and sharing kind words, sharing your support.

Candice Wu 51:42

You know, this is interesting timing because this is the 99th episode, and next week will be the 100th episode of the Embody Podcast. It’s crazy, and the count does not include all the meditations and experiential that would be, I don’t know, 130 if we counted all those pieces as separate, but all those experientials relate to their umbrella, their parent episode, which is 100 episodes.

Candice Wu 52:16

So, while we’re here, I want to just share that you can find all those episodes at CandiceWu.com/podcast, and you can even search episodes that relate to what you might, what kind of nourishment you might need or topics you’re wanting to explore, and you can go to CandiceWu.com/meditations to find all the experiential and meditations that I’ve created and shared as well as those of my guests on the podcast.

Candice Wu 52:44

Thanks so much for joining me today, and I look forward to connecting with you with the 100th podcast next week. So, tune in for that if you’re interested. I have a very special guest that she and I share something very important in common, and you’ll find out what that is next week.

Candice Wu 53:03

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

Candice Wu 0:00

This episode is about receiving, specifically taking versus receiving, and how we block ourselves from receiving what we desire, how we can be in the state of being that allows us to receive what we desire, and how all of that relates to embodiment and all of the emotions that we have the capacity to feel.

Candice Wu 0:22

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

Candice Wu 0:36

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

Candice Wu 0:57

I’m so excited to announce to you that the Ally With Death Experiential audio is finally out after, I don’t know, if you’ve been listening in for the last year at some point, I’ve been speaking about it even a year ago, but this is a really beautiful, provocative, moody and stimulating audio-guided experience, that is me guiding you through a simulation of your death and what you need to let go of what wants to die that needs to die in your life or end what you’re ready to release to make space for the next step of your life, how you want to be in your life that feels like you, and what is life-giving for you.

Candice Wu 1:47

This audio experience is really special because it features music by Larry Saint Germain. He plays the hand pan and it just bubbles and stirs, and shakes up what’s inside that might be stagnant in you or weighing you down, making you feel anxious or depressed or what’s stuck inside. So, the sounds, the music, really stir things up and bring forward along with the prompts that I asked, and guide you through in terms of feeling like it’s your own death so that it can really bring you to that edge of vulnerability and honesty in yourself.

Candice Wu 2:32

The experiential is about 75 minutes long, and it’s produced and amalgamated by the editor of this podcast, Chris Spiegl, and he does an amazing job of putting together all the sounds in a way that connects right up with what’s happening through the experience. So, this experience is fabulous to do on the new moon, which is coming up soon and is once a month, and it’s also really great as we’re entering in the winter season, letting what needs to release and transform and transmute, do so and create the compost for fertile life coming up. You can find that at CandiceWu.comm/death, and it’s also a great gift for the holiday season for yourself or anyone who is in your life that you feel might benefit from it. All of that money goes to fuel the podcast and it just gets recycled into more creations and more of these podcasts that offer different topics and meditations to you.

Candice Wu 3:36

Hello, everyone. It’s fabulous to have you here. I invite you to just take this moment to feel into yourself, connect and notice how it has to be in your body, notice if your energy feels whole and collected in yourself or it feels like it’s scattered and running around in circles are going amok. Notice if your mind is somewhere else that’s part of your energy and your attention, and notice this without any judgment. It’s just a moment to observe and gather information about what’s happening inside.

Candice Wu 4:26

Thanks for joining me. It’s great to have you here, and before we jump in today, I want to give you a little update about where I am in the world and what has been in the spotlight of my life. I was recently in Grandville, Ohio at Denison University, was Molly Shanahan/Mad Shak Choreography, that dance company, and they have been working on this incredible piece about the movements and the expressions that come alive and are born from a traumatic experience.

Candice Wu 5:00

I’ve been so grateful to be part of that project by being a somatic consultant and bringing all of my embodied knowledge, intuition and expertise to their process, and it’s been incredible. They’re looking at layers of personal trauma, collective trauma, dance culture trauma, and what’s been ingrained in their bodies as a way of being, but also shifting that to witnessing what’s there and loving what’s there, and letting the movements come from a very deep place of their experience of humanity.

Candice Wu 5:37

So, they had a soft premiere in Chicago two weeks ago, and last week had their first weekend of shows at Denison university with talkbacks afterward, and it was just so incredible to see them working with how their bodies are moving and honoring their bodies rather than overriding and pushing through. We’ve talked all about overwhelm and how to support themselves in that process, resourcing and how to be supported by each other and look at something pleasurable when their body feels overwhelmed. It’s been wonderful. And so, shout out to them and deep-felt gratitude. Hopefully, I get them on the podcast one day, talking about their amazing artistic process and their research in this project.

Candice Wu 6:28

So, a little fun story, the last night I was there, I stayed in the Buxton Inn the whole weekend, which was fabulous, and I had read that there was a ghost in one of the rooms and there was a ghost, the ghost of the historical Inn that the owner of it, the founder, rather, who just overlooks the place, and sometimes there are occurrences in Room 9, and on the third night, of my visit there, I had to switch rooms because they didn’t have the same room for three nights. So, when I asked what room it was, they said Room 10, and I was like, few! I’m so glad it wasn’t room nine. I just didn’t really want to deal with that I was a little bit nervous about it, and then we got to Room 10 and it was gorgeous and adorable.

Candice Wu 7:22

And then the person, the receptionist said that it can get pretty noisy because it’s right above the staircase and the reception desk and the restaurant, and I said, “Is there another option?” And what was the other option? Yes, it was room nine. So, I decided to go for it, and I was still kind of nervous about it. I have never really been scared of ghosts. I don’t see ghosts or spirits in a very visual way, and yet, I have many friends that do and I just always thought, “Well, I don’t know if I want to see all of that.” And I had such an interesting experience. I decided to just talk with that spirit when I got to the room and just let them know that I was at peace with him, and I believe it was a he, and that’s what one of the founders is a he. And so, it felt like yeah, we’re at peace.

Candice Wu 8:29

And then, I was actually reminded by Chris Spiegl, the editor of this podcast and my former partner that I traveled with that, “Yeah, I was with the ancestors of this in this historical Inn,” and that just clicked to me in that moment. “Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I work with spirits all the time.” I work with ancestors all the time, with family constellations and my own ancestors, ancestors of other people and spirits, past selves, spirits from all sorts of dimensions. I don’t know why it just didn’t click to me that this was actually really familiar territory until that moment. And so, then, it just felt like, “Oh, okay, we’re fine here.” This is not new territory for me, and I know how to navigate this. And in fact, when I see things that might be scary to people through the ancestral work, through family constellations, it has never truly scared me.

Candice Wu 9:39

So, I go to sleep and I have the best sleep ever, and in the morning, I half woke up and I had sleep paralysis, briefly what seemed brief, and I’ve only had that a couple of times in my life. It doesn’t really scare me. It just is a really strange feeling, but here this time, I felt certain that there was a spirit that was like on the right side of my body. And in my half-waking state, I said in my mind, “No, get off of me. I don’t want you on top of me.” And he did, and I felt released some energetic grip, and then I could move again a few moments after.

Candice Wu 10:24

So, I did have an incident or occurrence or interaction, and it was fine. It didn’t really scare me. I just, it was interesting. I had boundaries while I was asleep. So, I was appreciating myself for that. So, whether or not that was actually the spirit or ancestor of this hotel this in, I don’t know, that’s just what it felt like, and that’s my account of the experience at the moment. So, before all this, before I went to sleep, I actually asked my pendulum whether there was a ghost in the room and it said, “No,” and then I asked, Is there a spirit in this room, and it said, “Yes.”

Candice Wu 11:05

So, in that moment, I got the message that maybe we shouldn’t be calling these ancestors of somebody, ghosts, and yes, they may be hanging around to finish something, but aren’t so many other spirits and energies here, too, if you believe in that. So, that’s my two cents on the topic of ghosts and spirits, today. Maybe you have more experiences or this enlivens some memory of something for you, I’d be happy to hear what your experiences, you can always reach out to me and share.

Candice Wu 11:44

One more thing I want to touch base on is that I had the most amazing astrology reading by Elena Sakopoulos. She’s the founder of hidden gift astrology, and you can find her on Instagram @hiddengiftastrology. I don’t get any money for saying this, I just really like her work, and she’s a friend of mine, and I spoke with her today after feeling very, very, very, very confused and kind of all over the place with some decisions and things that are going on in my life, relationships and all sorts of things, and I just got so much clarity and in fact, that chaos, that chaos I was describing was part of my chart with Uranus in a specific location.

Candice Wu 12:30

So, it’s really great because I felt way validated in my desires right now, my striving for certain kind of freedom in myself, the eccentric way that I’m setting up my relationships and structuring my boundaries, and defining what works for me. All of that was really reflected in my reading today, where she looked at the arc of some of the planets, transitions of the planets and what might be coming up for me. She has a holiday sale. So, it’s totally worth it and a gift certificate sale, so, you might check that out if you’re interested. I just got one for my mom.

Candice Wu 13:12

Alright, so, let’s jump into this episode. Last week we talked about taking versus receiving specifically about taking and that taking comes before giving, and it is, this very developmental process that is necessary and becomes an essential way of our assertive right in our lives. So, if you’re interested in learning more about that, check out the episode at CandiceWu.com/taking, which is part one of the series of three. Today’s on receiving and next week is on giving, and that leads us up to the United States Thanksgiving holiday.

Candice Wu 13:56

My initial reason for wanting to talk about this is that sometimes people feel like they’re not allowed to take, that they can’t take what they need even, and it just feels so painful because I know to myself this experience of not being able to reach out and take what I need, and that I deserve that and I’m worthy of it, and I’m not talking about stealing or taking what’s not mine or more than what I need, but just what I need, and what I desire. So, that episode goes way deeper into that developmental necessity where that can take us in terms of how we assert ourselves, and what we feel we’re able to take on in our life if we’re even able to take up space, take our time, all sorts of ways that taking is important.

Candice Wu 14:47

So, here we are today with receiving. What is receiving? Receiving can be allowing something to come to and agreeing to it, allowing yourself to take it, absorb it in, hold it, be with it, have it, and when we think about receiving, we often think about what we’re attracting to and what we contain in our being that comes our way, what we absorb in. The biggest thing I have to say about receiving is that it is all in the body. It is all about how the body, the cells of our body, the muscles, the tone of our tissues, what it does when something comes our way. It’s all in our capacity to feel that we’re worthy of receiving and that we are allowed to, and our capacity to feel all of our feelings.

Candice Wu 15:55

If we are blocking certain feelings, if we think that they’re bad that we have them, and this happens in subtle ways, like, we think we should feel better instead of just feeling what we feel where we want to do something about it to cope with it, certainly there’s a place for that, because there are times where we really need to just do something about it so we can do something else. And it’s my hope that you come back to those feelings because those feelings are real treasures, which give the pathway to allow you to receive what you want to receive because if those feelings are there, that might be sensation or emotion in your body, that’s energy, and it’s taking up space, and it might have a certain kind of direction or quality to how it takes up space in your being and your energy field, and in your body, and it can block other things that you do want to receive more of from coming in.

Candice Wu 17:05

Sure, it can also block more negative things from coming in, which is probably a way that of survival if that is your way, that may be a whole other conversation, but if we build our capacity to be with what’s present in our bodies, what feelings we have, thoughts, emotions, sensation with a witness, with the feeling that our body can hold it and not overriding, where when we feel like our body is not big enough that we just plow through where we develop that capacity over time, then that is the direction towards receiving what you wish and to be able to consciously create and attract, and allow what it is that you can’t consciously want, not what is unconscious. There’s all sorts of stuff coming our way that is unconscious, that we’re not aware of, that our bodies and energies are conditioned to, and we’ll talk about all that today.

Candice Wu 18:18

So, the capacity to feel all of our emotions is part of a receptive mode of our body, a state of being that is our appear state of being, that has access to all the modes of communicating from and with our bodies and energies, that these emotions are tools, part of our toolkit, and when that’s blocked, it’s blocking our receptivity, and when it’s flowing and open, more is able to flow towards us.

Candice Wu 18:50

There are certainly times to block our energies and to close in and not receive more especially if you’re feeling overstimulated. So, there’s not a good and bad of any of this, really, it’s just where you’re at, what’s the next thing for you, where do you want to develop your capacity or what’s needed in this time and place for you in your life and on your journey, now.

Candice Wu 19:18

Abraham Hicks talks about receptive mode, and I’ve often enjoyed some of her talks, although, she does not seem to give away towards building that capacity for receptive mode, at least not in the talks that I’ve listened to, and it’s not quite trauma-sensitive, where if you have had experiences that have traumatized you, that have been overwhelming to you or your lineage, which I don’t know anyone that doesn’t have something, she doesn’t quite give away towards building that receptivity rather than saying just do it, and for some people that really works, and for some people, it doesn’t. So, it may take some healing process over time, it may take that building of capacity over time, learning about your body and building a relationship, which is all about what this podcast is about, to build your receptivity.

Candice Wu 20:26

When I think about our state of being, and being in a receptive state of being, receptive towards what we desire, so much goes into that. One piece is that on a human physical level, we come into this life through our parents, and we come into this life into an energetic field of the soul of this family system that is the biological family, and this is really important because that gives not just like our gut flora or our DNA, but that DNA is intricately one with the experiences and the amount of safety that’s in the system based on how much they’re able to integrate the experiences and celebrate the good things and look at the really hard and tragic things, and what’s leftover.

Candice Wu 21:31

Sometimes experiences are so traumatizing and tragic that the people that experienced them weren’t able to actually look where it wasn’t safe afterward, and those energies of emotions and experience get passed down and connected with later people in the ancestry which we are part of. So, it’s not a bad thing. It’s just indicating to us where there is the next step of healing or looking that brings us back to our wholeness, our natural, safe state of being.

Candice Wu 22:15

Whatever system we came into, when we were an infant, even in utero, there’s a level of felt sense, safety or unsafety, some spectrum of that, based on all of the collective experience of the family system, and what’s happening in the collective consciousness at that time as well and in the culture, and then we get to a very personal level of the parents that we have and what they’re holding in their bodies and nervous systems, how their nervous systems are, what level of safety their nervous systems feel, which give how much capacity they’re able to attune and mirror and bring safety to their child. What level of coherence and the ability to hold their own experience as well as their babies? So, that brings us to the question of, what was it like when you entered into this life? What’s your impression? Where’s that held in your body? And what did you receive?

Candice Wu 23:27

Literally, what did you receive, not just in good stuff, and things you needed. If you got some of that, you must have gotten at least some of it to survive to this point, if not a lot in your life, but what did you receive that might have been unpleasant or unwanted or uncomfortable that may have felt like you had to receive that or else you wouldn’t survive or it was just a tidal wave coming at you and your life. So, all of those experiences early on can tie into what messages we receive about ourselves and as well as messages we came in with, maybe from a past life or from another dimension of experience, from other experiences before this life, if you believe in that, which I do.

Candice Wu 24:24

So, our early ways of experiencing the world, the world around us, this nature versus nurture conversation, I believe it works in collaboration, that if our nurturance, by those that we were born from was attuned enough than it needed to nurture our nature, specifically to what kind of being we were, and yet there are all sorts of factors that come into play beyond this that we cannot say that it’s only pointing to our early experience, in my opinion. So, as we bring this to the conversation about receiving, what comes to mind and heart for you when you bring up the topic of receiving? What do you feel with that idea and concept? And where do you feel it in your body?

Candice Wu 25:28

I was a container for all sorts of unwanted emotions, for example, shame, fear, and anger of others in my ancestry, and then later, I also found past lives or lives of other dimensions where I wasn’t able to feel the heartbreaking grief and loss of some experiences until now… because it wasn’t safe. And if this topic is in interesting to you about the ancestry, you can check out the family constellations episode at CandiceWu.com/ep5 or go to the other podcasts where, with guests and with myself, we related to this topic at CandiceWu.com/familyconstellations where you’ll find all those listed, and if you’re interested in in the past life stuff, you can just go to my podcast CandiceWu.com/podcast and search past lives and you’ll find all those episodes that connect.

Candice Wu 26:37

So, we can be receiving all sorts of things, we can receive, “good things,” pleasurable things desirable, money, abundance, we can receive unwanted things, things that are painful, undesirable experiences that repeat themselves. We may be receiving energy that is not ours, energy we don’t want to contain in our body. We may receive vibrations or energies from someone that feels supportive or lifts us up, prayer maybe pleasure or joy, money, and abundance, resource, opportunities, possibilities, gifts, compliments, touch or hugs, contact. Receiving also involves being seen and receiving someone seeing you, receiving support and being held, receiving food, receiving love. Sometimes, where love might be tangled with other things that we don’t want, like when paired with obligation or pain.

Candice Wu 28:03

If you want to look into this more deeply, there are two podcast episodes and that’s at CandiceWu.com/love and also /lovepart2. We can receive respect and healthy admiration, sensuality, sexual pleasure, simple pleasures of looking at things and receiving the beauty, human enjoyment, receiving flavors and smells, sounds, ecstatic experiences. So, as we make this list up, see what else comes up for you about what can be received, but here, now, as we bring up a more reflective space of receiving and how you experience it. I want to ask several questions that may stir up what it is been like for you in your world and perhaps what will be the next step in your capacity to receive.

Candice Wu 29:29

So, with the topic of receiving, what are you receiving in your life? And I’m not just talking about the pleasant or good things, “good, good things.” I’m talking about what is arriving in your space and that you’re accepting in or taking in. Some of this might be unpleasant or unwanted or undesirable, and some of it may be joyful or pleasant, what are you receiving? If you need more time to reflect on these questions, I invite you to pause the podcast, and then just continue on when you’re ready, and this may be a great place to journal if you’re interested. So, feel free to pause and grab a journal or a cup of tea and come back to it or just meditate with me and see what comes up here.

Candice Wu 30:44

So, just to give a little bit of the opposite experience I named that I was a container for unwanted emotions and other painful things that came through the ancestry, and that created some imprint for how I would interact with the entire world, and yet, I’ve also been over time as I’ve healed so much of my trauma and difficult experiences, I’ve been able to receive so much good, so much pleasure, peace of mind, peace, time, being with people and receiving a lot of love, interaction, and intimacy. I’ve received so many opportunities to connect with people that are feeling really aligned with me and stimulate my own creativity. I’ve received a lot of support from people that support this podcast as well as my life and my world, my creative endeavors, who I am as a person, and I’ve also learned to receive from myself.

Candice Wu 32:01

So, there will be another reflective experience later in this episode as well as some self-forgiveness that will offer to support some clearing of belief sets and things that come up around receiving, but before we go there, I want to talk about what causes a blockage of receiving. We kind of touched on it already, but if you’ve had experiences where you’ve had to protect yourself, energetically or physically, and you may not have been able to do something that you needed to do to protect yourself that may be an experience of trauma, and in some way, the body does it differently and finds a way to survive it, and so, that might be tension in your body, in your tissues or muscles and that can create you know, you’ve heard the sense of there’s a wall between us where it’s like talking to a brick wall where they’re so cold, or I feel so distant.

Candice Wu 33:08

So, whether it’s a physical boundary or not, there’s a way our body creates an energetic and then physical experience that can block us from receiving the things that we really want and need to receive. It’s a way of shutting down the frozen state tonic immobility of playing dead that the body needs to do to protect due to overwhelm, and if that sounds somewhat familiar to you or you feel numb quite a bit or you can’t receive, you might check out the Nervous System Overwhelm Episode at CandiceWu.com/overwhelm, which will give more details about that experience.

Candice Wu 33:52

If you’re receiving too much of something that’s unpleasant, you might look at what your spirit is trying to draw you to, because this may be the next spiritual lesson or the spiritual lesson of your life, but this is where the energy is, this is where your receptivity is on the other side of this experience. So, it’s guiding you to get through it, to move through it, to build the capacity there, to feel through that and know that possibility of a human experience so that you’re going to arrive back at a natural state of safety, flow, and coherence.

Candice Wu 34:36

This also might relate to a disruption in early life around merging with your mother. In utero and as infants we have this experience of merging with mother, with the energy of mother where we’re not separate, where we’re physically not separate and then when we come out with even, there’s an experience of needing to be with to survive, and we need the regulated nervous system of our mother to feel safe enough to develop our own nervous systems and capacity to then, at some point, begin to separate and learn that we are a separate body that can handle with this nervous system that’s building and with mothers still present, that we can be safe in the world, and that’s why we need to be within 36 inches of the heart’s space of our mothers.

Candice Wu 35:39

I think that the HeartMath Institute does research on that, but if there’s some disruption around merging like it doesn’t feel safe or mother had to give up the baby and you were adopted or the mother got sick or depressed or something that happened, another baby came too soon for this infant, then that can feel to an adult person that had this experience that hasn’t yet healed from that or healed around that, that you can receive too many other energies and emotions from the outer world because there’s still a need to merge with something safe.

Candice Wu 36:27

A lot of empaths feel that way, that they can be flooded with emotions that they don’t know whose they are and it can feel very unsettling to be in a group. I certainly was that way for a long time, and as I developed my nervous system capacity and sense of self, it’s easy to have a boundary and not take in other emotions, but there are times where sometimes, there’s a space in my energetic boundary that take something in and it relates to some receptivity in myself or some similar experience that my body and spirit wants me to look at.

Candice Wu 37:11

Feeling blocked in receiving can relate to the belief sets that we’ve internalized over lifetimes, ancestry in this life, both conscious and unconscious, and the ones that are unconscious are the ones that usually live and control more of our thoughts and behaviors, our experience in life. I think also because most of the time, they’re undesirable or we have some resistance against it, but this is showing us again, something that wants to be seen, felt through and bringing us to a larger capacity.

Candice Wu 37:55

This brings me to another experience of ancestry and our interconnectedness with all people and creatures is that we have, deep in us that interconnectedness, and what I see and believe as this love, that we do love all creatures and beings, earth as well as an animated living being, breathing, breathing being, and that when we see that others are not receiving something or having something or if they’re in pain or they’re in an excruciating experience, that we might decide somewhere in us that we can’t have it either or we can’t have more or we can’t be in pleasure or peace because other people aren’t or certain animals are not, and then we choose to suffer as well.

Candice Wu 38:59

That’s one way looking at it. It could be someone who died in our family ancestry or in a past life or in another dimension or in this life, especially if they died young like a baby or stillborn child, in utero, a younger adult or if someone died by suicide, there is this deep love that binds us that wants them to be okay, and we want to do it with them sometimes or want to feel that they’re not having to do it alone or their survivor’s guilt, like, why did I live and they didn’t? Sometimes, we have in our perception that others don’t have as much or receive as much or they’re not as happy or they’re suffering, and then we also choose to suffer. This is all tied into the family constellations, conversations, and I could go on a lot longer about it, but for today, I’ll just leave it at that. I’ll connect this with a story that I have of eating shrimp and crab legs.

Candice Wu 40:07

One day, I was having a special romantic night with someone, and we had just bought crab legs from the store and made them. And this is a while back when I was really working on my worth and what I could receive, and as I was eating them, I started crying and the thought was, should I be able to have this when I know my grandparents don’t? And there was this feeling in my body of like, I shouldn’t have this, I’m not allowed to, how could I? And it was like betrayal and disloyalty to them. So, there’s a way in which we might be loyal in order to love those that we love. We might be loyal to suffering or not having as much or not allowing ourselves to receive, and it feels like a betrayal to receive more or it feels like we’re going to be betrayed if we receive more, like, we’ll be called selfish or we will be ungrateful or other beliefs that may come up.

Candice Wu 41:17

I wrote a blog post on the invisible bonds of love, money, and abundance in our ability to receive that, and I talked about how my grandpa was sold for money and how I was so holding that experience of loss, of disconnection in the family line that also related to money, and that really affected how it came down the line as to what I thought I could receive, and if I even felt enough in myself. You can read that blog post at CandiceWu.com/invisiblebonds, and with all these links, I’ll link them to the show notes as well.

Candice Wu 42:02

I’ll touch briefly on two other things because this is becoming quite a long episode, is the ability to say, “No.” If we’re not able to say no or have boundaries, that can sometimes cause us to not be able to receive what we want because we’re just receiving everything then or we are taking on everything or all the things that just come our way, and by selecting what we say yes to and say no to, it’s really important, because it gives the energetic space for what you want and tells the other things, “No.”

Candice Wu 42:38

The second thing is expectations. When we want something so much that the intensity of that desire actually means or shows that there’s the opposite fear attached, like, fear we won’t have it or what if we don’t have it? Then that is actually fear coming through. It’s not a state of being of abundance and receptivity, it is fear playing itself out by wanting, by expecting things to be a certain way that is attachment, because fear creates that tie to attachment, but all that can show you where the fear lies, and looking and feeling that fear is honoring and deepening your capacity, so, it’s showing you the next chapter or program of your school of life and where the energy is blocked, and on the other side, without the push or force of expecting it to be there is usually more.

Candice Wu 43:43

So, just a little shift in gears is that I believe that we all have the right to receive and we have a share that’s ours, that if we’re in alignment with who we truly are, there’s all sorts of abundance that is specifically going to reflect you because you’re worthy and you’re here. The juice of your essence is connected with the infinite world of possibility and that gives you the space to create anything and to be in the flow of the possibility that you are because you are that conscious energy that makes all things. So, that can get a little heady but wanted to say that before we jump into looking at some belief sets because belief sets really get down to the core of what and how much you’re able to receive and the beliefs connect up with a whole set of feelings, emotions, energies, and images in your being that create this way, one way of being.

Candice Wu 44:56

So, looking at beliefs, this is the second part of this podcast, of reflection. Take a moment and just feel a couple of breaths move through your body, and we’ll look at some beliefs and feel free to write down some that come to you or that resonate with you as I say them. What do you feel the permission to receive? What do you feel you’re allowed to receive? And that’s different from what you think you’re allowed to receive. What you feel you can and are allowed, and are permitted to receive? Are you allowed to receive love, belonging, a sense of home gifts, compliments, money, expansion, what are you allowed to receive?

Candice Wu 46:04

Complete the sentence: To receive love would mean ____ or in order to receive love, I need to _____. And this is just ruffling up the belief sets that are here, not necessarily cleansing them out yet or shifting them to what you truly want, just what’s here, and just to adjust that one: to receive, fill in the blank here would mean to and fill in the blank here. So, for example: to receive money would mean to betray my parents or would mean to bend over backward, that’s just an example, and fill in the blank here: to receive a compliment would mean to be ____, some options are selfish, full of yourself ungrateful, disrespectful or maybe you’re at the place where it feels good to be grateful, thankful.

Candice Wu 47:30

What are the rules around what you’re allowed to receive and what you’re not or what amount you’re able to receive? What opportunities come to you and what opportunities do not? When you see other people experiencing things, when are the moments that you feel like, “Oh, I could never have that or that wouldn’t ever happen for me?” Is there a limit to what you feel you deserve? And where are other beliefs connected with your ability to receive or what you can receive or what you do receive? Your worthiness, being good enough or being enough, being a good person or being valuable, lovable, to have beliefs like I’m not allowed to receive because I’m a bad person or a failure or I’m not allowed to receive until I x y&z, and there’s a way you hold yourself hostage, and fill in the blank: If I receive ____ then others will think ______ and just see what there is here for you.

Candice Wu 49:21

And as we close this section of belief sets for now or a million other beliefs that’s I could come up here, which I invite you to explore. I just leave you with the forgiveness statement that my healer Charmayne Kilcup uses with me all the time and I use with my clients is: I forgive myself, for judging myself for believing and then fill in the blank for yourself or I forgive myself for judging myself for having to experience, and then as you turn these around into what you like to believe, and are consciously moving towards, not as an affirmation, but as a way to help clear judgments that and energies that connect with the opposite, use the statement if you’d like: I forgive myself for judging myself for forgetting and add in anything that fits their like, for forgetting that it is safe to receive now or I am worthy of receiving. I deserve what I need. I’m allowed to receive pleasure. I’m allowed to receive gifts and compliments without being judged, and really ask yourself, “Is it safe to receive?”

Candice Wu 51:01

In some settings, it’s not or there’s a feeling that receiving something will threaten something else. It may be important to name those things and see if they’re true, now. Certainly, if you’re in a situation where your life is being threatened or you’re being abused and it’s not safe, I invite you to get extra support and recognize that is not safe. So, I’d like to end here with just a few comments about when you do receive the thing that you’re wanting to receive or something else that just beautifully comes your way. Check to see how you receive it. Do you say thank you, and have an open heart to receive it?

Candice Wu 51:56

Have you ever set a compliment to someone and they said, “Oh no, that’s, you know, it’s all you or it’s Oh no, that’s not really me or something.” It almost feels like a rejection, right? It is a rejection. It’s like handing someone a gift and they don’t take it. So, are you doing that to opportunities or love that’s coming your way to support and certainly you can say no, but do you say no in instances where you actually want to say yes? You might open to the unexpected and say, “Thank you.”

Candice Wu 52:38

Ken Honda was on the podcast recently talking about money, and he is Japanese and looks at our relationship with money, and he loves to say, “Arigato in, Arigato out.” So, when you receive and when you give, there’s a thanks. So, when we receive something, just like in the beginning when I said it’s all in the body, in our feeling sense or openness or contraction, when you receive, how is your body speaking? What’s happening? Is there a way you can soften and allow it to come in, and say thank you and feel into that thank you? Or do you need to say no and block it and say, “That’s not what I want?” And what are you saying in different instances?

Candice Wu 53:36

Attuning to receiving and pleasure and what you desire is a practice. It is you’re right, but it is a practice, because we’re often receiving so much other stuff that we’re conditioned to that, we’re programmed for that or we are accustomed to it, and our bodies need practice to feel the things that you do want to have. So, take time in the peaceful moment. Take time in the beauty of receiving an opportunity and revel in it or when someone sees you, savor it. If you’d like to develop these capacities further and attuned to pleasure further, I have a bunch of different resources for you, and I’ll link these on the show notes.

Candice Wu 54:31

So, I’ll just mention these now, and feel free to jump on to the website and just click on these or write these down or find them as you hear them. Where you can find this specific podcast is that CandiceWu.com/receiving, and there is an experiential called Embodying Your Desires in Love: Receiving and Taking. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/ep65.

Candice Wu 55:05

Also, Ancestral Order — Clearing up Responsibility and Receiving the Best. This is a Family Constellations experiential, and it’s Episode 30c, so, you can find it at CandiceWu.com/ep30. And then, I have a couple of blog posts on pleasure and attuning to pleasure, you can search through my blog post and just click on pleasure and find a lot more but this specific one is at CandiceWu.com/pleasure, and it’s three ways to attune to pleasure.

Candice Wu 55:44

So, I’m wishing you all the capacity to receive because as you receive, others have more permission to receive and as you receive, you fall into the right, the alignment of who you are, to receive all that is here for you to receive, to experience everything you want to, and that opens up more. So, thank you for receiving, and I invite you to look at your boundaries around receiving and continue to practice. Be gentle with yourself when you hit those bumps in the road that feel like you’re not receiving because those are the bumps that lead you towards the smooth, open road.

Candice Wu 56:36

Thank you so much for joining me today, and listening all the way through to this podcast. I am so grateful for you being here, and if you would like to give something to the podcast and allow me to receive it, I would gladly receive it with open arms and an open heart. You can find my support page at CandiceWucom/support, and there are just a bunch of ways where you can contribute to the podcast, and also receive something in return if you’re interested, for example, the personal meditations, the Ally with Death Experiential that I mentioned earlier, the Embodied Healing Group or if you just want to give a donation without any of that, I will gladly receive that, because it does support and nurture this podcast and keep it going.

Candice Wu 57:25

Also, feel free to sign up for my newsletter that comes out once or twice a month at CandiceWu.com/embody. Let’s leave with a little bit of music here as you let your ears receive some pleasant sound, hopefully it’s pleasant for you or feel free to shut it off if you say, “No,” but thank you, again and wishing you all a lovely experience today, of life.

Candice Wu 0:00

This episode is part one of three of taking versus receiving and the balance between taking and receiving versus giving, and where we’re coming from in each of these.

Candice Wu 0:14

Part one here is specifically about the assertive energy of taking, and where that comes from developmentally, how we can use that energy in our lives when we need it, and to clear up any belief systems, belief sets that interfere with our ability to use that tool in our lives.

Candice Wu 0:38

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 1:12

Hi, everyone, welcome back to the Embody Podcast. It is fabulous to have you here. We have here part one of three of this exploration around taking, receiving, and giving and it’s going to be very interesting because the last episode will land on the week of Thanksgiving for the United States. But regardless if you have Thanksgiving or not coming up, the ideas around giving, taking, receiving can be very interesting to explore. And part of my interest in this is looking at those ways of being and clearing up belief sets that just don’t belong with it, things that we’ve associated with giving or taking, or receiving as a society as well as personally in your lineage maybe or in your soul, and just cleaning that up so that there’s a very clear way to take in your life to receive and to give that it comes from a very congruent and deep place of concurrency, and integrity.

Candice Wu 2:21

Before we go into this conversation, I am thrilled to announce that the Ally with Death experiential, that I used to have as an online experience where you type in your responses is now an audio experience. So it’s a recording that is set to some moody and provocative music, along with my voice guiding you through a death of the old ways of being that you may have that are ready to die, habits and belief sets that you may want to release or recognize now, and find a way to transform and an experience to rebirth you into what feels more like you, now and today, what feels life-giving and present.

Candice Wu 3:07

This is just a fabulous creation by me and a friend of mine, Larry Saint Germain, and he is who created all of the music that is just going to shake up all of what stagnant and decaying on the inside and ready to die. His music along with the editing and amalgamation of the music by Chris Spiegl, which is also the editor of the podcast, and a friend of mine and former partner of mine. This is just a beautiful creation by the three of us that was originally inspired by Ana T. Forrest who created the death meditation.

Candice Wu 3:52

So if you’re interested in shifting out of stagnancy, or if you’re feeling stuck in your life, if there is anxiety or depression, uncertainty about the next steps or what you need to be doing in your life, if there are ways of being that feel just not serving you anymore, or uncomfortable, or like, you need to change, or if you just want to get some clarity for yourself or you’re intrigued about how death can support life, how embracing death can give you more life or you’re interested in following nature’s guidance to go inward and let die what needs to die as the winter approaches, then check out the Ally with Death audio experiential. So if you dare, then you can find that experience at CandiceWu.com/death.

Candice Wu 4:45

It’s a great gift for someone who might benefit from this or you’re feeling like need some support in this area, something to shake things up or stimulate something new, provoke something new. I love this experience. And even for myself at least twice a year, I love to do this. And so it’s a great way to let die what needs to die and to build a relationship with death, which gives us more life. It’s really, truly building our relationship with life. And when we resist death, we resist life.

Candice Wu 5:23

So looking at death, the ability to see what death brings, what can die and how it feels, and what needs to can let us embody something else in this life for us, and what’s really true and alive right now. So again, that’s at CandiceWu.com/death, and it is on sale now until November 15, 2019.

Candice Wu 5:50

It’s so fitting that this experiential is birthing itself here on the tail end of Dia de Los Muertos and this shift of mercury going into retrograde at the end of October and into November, where for me, I felt a lot of shift in myself. I felt like things did need to die. And even one day, last weekend, I was in this half-awake, half-sleep state and I heard myself say in my mind, I am dying. And it wasn’t the kind of I’m dying that people can typically say like, I feel awful, I’m dying. It was more like I knew and I felt aware that there were things inside of me that were dismantling and dying off and breaking off, crumbling and it was really interesting. I didn’t really have words to describe what that was, but I knew in my feeling sense and my felt sense that something was happening and that growth was happening even though it was very uncomfortable.

Candice Wu 7:09

It took a little bit of time for me to verbalize what was going on and now I can say that I was letting go of some ways of being, where I might protect people from their feelings by accommodating them, not telling people what I really want, need or what I want to say. But really, I’m protecting myself and at the same time, I felt like there was a very strong oath that I had taken somewhere in my life, and somewhere in my soul in past lives, to protect the men. And what that took out to be was to protect men from their emotions and to work around that and shapeshift so that men around me didn’t have to feel uncomfortable or have reactions. And I know that growing up, that was a survival mechanism, because my dad might blow up or say something really mean to me. But while I’d worked with that a lot in my lifetime, especially in the last 11 years, 10 years, it felt deeper than that.

Candice Wu 8:24

So as many of you know, that are working with me or have heard the podcast, or have heard the work of Charmayne Kilcup, which is one of my healers, who brings this method through Robert Waterman, her teacher, is that I used forgiveness statements to release this a bit. And when I said the words: I forgive myself for judging myself for all the times and places that I vowed and promised to protect men.

Candice Wu 8:53

I could feel something in my body shifting even though mentally I may not have known what that was and it felt like more of my body opened up, more freedom opened up, more capacity to be present. And that was showing itself a little bit before this feeling of I’m dying inside. But as that happened, I think more that died in me, the need to do that and the need to protect myself and others from our feelings and reactions and it led to me feeling more like myself, and more assertive and also feeling more aligned with the present moment where I’m making choices that reflect and are congruent with what I need and desire right now, and less attached to future outcomes, like what will happen in the future if I choose x, y, and z now, where I know that even if I have those thought processes things can change between now and “the future”.

Candice Wu 10:05

And so when I make decisions like that, it really doesn’t serve me and it’s really just a little bit of anxiety about, anxiety that’s feeling of not trusting myself in the future, not trusting what may come. And so along with this dying inside, I have felt more aligned with joy and what’s true to myself now, and more able to just make a very clear and direct choice for myself.

Candice Wu 10:39

It’s really comparable to my experience with horses and all the work I’ve done with horses and just watching them and learning from them is they’ll just go for what they want. And they’re working with what’s present in the moment, what’s presenting in the moment and responding to that and choosing what they’re feeling like doing without the thinking of the future.

Candice Wu 11:05

And as I’m saying this, I realized that I’m not exactly saying that I’m not going to be thinking about the future in choices that I make. There are definite times that I will be doing that and need to be doing that and that’s an important tool. I’m more speaking towards other things that just don’t affect the future and they’re more clearly aligned with what just needs to happen now.

Candice Wu 11:31

So as I say all these, what in you is dying? Or, what do you want to let go of and shift or shake off of you? What beliefs in you are up for reevaluation or ways of being, ways that you interact with people? Where are there places that you can try something different and what would happen? What are belief sets that if you didn’t have to live with or live by, might create a different result in your life?

Candice Wu 12:13

I’d love to hear from you if you’re interested in sharing with me what’s happening for you and if you’re interested in going deeper, as I mentioned earlier, the Ally with Death experiential is a great way to do that.

Candice Wu 12:27

And also, as we’re nearing the holiday season, I would like to just have this moment to remind us all of giving some time to ourselves, to tend to what’s happening in our inner world. Well, a lot in the outer world can be happening.

Candice Wu 12:46

These last couple of days, I noticed that I had some tension start to build up in my neck and my shoulders and when that’s the case, I know that I’ve been neglecting something that wants to be honored inside and maybe some emotions that want to move. And when I just scoot by life, without giving myself that extra time and space, it can just be this slow accumulation of what wants to be seen inside and it builds up for me in tension. Does that happen for you and do you need a little time to just sit with yourself and perhaps even give a little self-touch or contact to your body in a way that suits your body?

Candice Wu 13:41

So I invite you to do that right now. Just take this moment while we’re here together and let go of your tension on anything in the outer world and turn that energy towards yourself to give yourself this moment of peace with yourself that doesn’t ask anything more of yourself, doesn’t pressure yourself to be any certain way or to do, or accomplish anything. And if there’s a way that your body would like to be touched, a way that feels soothing or caring to your body, allow yourself to do that. Maybe that’s a soft hug or touching a place in your body, on your body that feels like it needs support, or a release without pressuring your body to release or do anything.

Candice Wu 14:46

Just sense into your breath, how you’re doing in this moment, how it is to be in your body, right here.

Candice Wu 15:04

And even this one minute of doing so, notice if anything changes in you or reveals itself.

Candice Wu 15:21

And now we’ll shift into our conversation for today, which is about taking and it’s part one of the taking, receiving, and giving conversation and as we, just to conclude this moment of taking space and time for yourself, feels like a perfect bridge to the conversation of taking.

Candice Wu 15:45

Taking can mean so many things. It can mean taking what you desire, taking space, as we just said, taking time, taking up space, taking a pace that’s right for you, taking what you need, taking a walk or a hike, taking more or take two, like, try again, or do the second round, like in every rehearsal take two, take three and also taking your place, taking your place, your sense of belonging and who you are. What other words come up for you around taking where taking is something that’s necessary or needed?

Candice Wu 16:51

I’ve often felt that people stigmatize the act of taking, like, they shouldn’t take or that it’s selfish to take and you should just give.

Candice Wu 17:04

So this is part of why I wanted to have this conversation today is that there’s a relationship between taking and giving, and give and take. There is a difference between taking versus receiving. And how can we look at these and peel off on pair of things that have been tangled up with the ability to take, receive, and give so that we can be really congruent and very present with what’s really happening when we do any of those actions.

Candice Wu 17:55

I want to start with taking and the majority of the conversation today will be about taking. Next week will be about receiving and the week after about giving. And I’ll just briefly say here, well, there’s the stigmatization of taking at times, I’ve often noticed an overvaluing of giving.

Candice Wu 18:20

Giving is absolutely a beautiful thing and it can make us feel really good. It can make others feel great. But it can also deplete those who overgive. And why do we do that?

Candice Wu 18:34

I’ve often done that myself. Where does that come from? Is there a deception coming from that, the need to please others or do the nice thing, the thing that might make others see you in a good light? Is there a manipulation involved? Is there a sense of appeasing or fun, which is often spoken as the fourth state of fight, flight, and freeze. Fun or appease is a way that we might freeze in parts of us shut down, parts of what we need or need to express, to put that aside, in order to please and accommodate or submit to someone else and their needs so that we can get some safety, love or attention from that or perhaps belonging.

Candice Wu 19:31

So, that’s just a very brief touching on giving and also what’s to come in two weeks from now.

Candice Wu 19:43

And right now, I want to talk about the developmental experience of taking and a lot of people say, you need to give and take or there’s a give and take, and what my teacher in Family Constellations, Suzi Tucker says: “it is take then give”, that taking comes before giving.

Candice Wu 20:10

So my interpretation and my understanding of that is that developmentally we need to take and receive in order to be able to turn around towards others and give. So let’s break that down a little more specifically, that taking what we need, means taking love, it means taking food and nourishment, reaching out for support, reaching out in something, someone being there to receive us. We cannot truly give before we take because there might not be much to give if we don’t have what we need inside.

Candice Wu 21:08

Somehow as children, we tend to be able to give, even if it seems like we have not received what we needed. Perhaps, we did receive something and we’re just not aware of it or from farther back where we have some capacity on us. Or, it’s just clear that we are giving without having received what we need, and there’s a price to pay for that.

Candice Wu 21:42

So I’m specifically talking about when we’re young, that it’s developmentally necessary to be supported in what we need. We need a sense of safety, we need food, we need touch. We need love and attunement, and attention. We need someone to reflect who we are and what we’re feeling, what we’re experiencing. We need someone to protect us, we need the support of a regulated nervous system that gives us the ability to build a nervous system that feels safe. We need to feel that we belong and have a place.

Candice Wu 22:30

And so when we’re young, we need to be able to take what we need. And taking is more active than receiving, we absolutely need to receive. So if our parents give us something to hold out our hands and let that come into our hands, or the ability to let someone’s attention towards us come into our hearts and bodies. And of course, if that wasn’t there for you, then there may be all sorts of disruptions or even an experience of trauma because of it. But we also need to be able to take.

Candice Wu 23:15

So if you think of a baby breastfeeding, the baby needs to be able to suck in order to eat and receive the milk. We need to be able to ask for what we want and take it. We need to be able to just be that spunky child that grabs what they need, because we need to know what we need and that it’s available for us to have. We need to be able to feel allowed to ask for things and assert those things that we need, what we want, and we need the permission from others to take what we need to have what we need the right to take. It is a right and it’s more assertive and active than receiving, even though receiving is also a very important essential aspect.

Candice Wu 24:15

So when we talk about taking, I don’t mean taking what’s not yours or taking more than you need that’s coming from lack. It’s really about the sense of abundance and that there’s a right to take what is yours, what you need, and what you desire from a place of that capacity to receive and have. If we had the right to take what we needed, would we need to take more than that? Maybe not.

Candice Wu 24:55

If we felt trusting that we could take what we needed, we could have it, then we might have a different way of being in the world and with each other. Sometimes we take from others if we think we can’t have it or can’t create it for ourselves, maybe that comes from jealousy or a place that we weren’t able to take and receive in our lives. Again, that’s a sense of scarcity or lack. But also coming from a real experience perhaps, of not having what you needed when you needed it, not being able to take and reach out.

Candice Wu 25:38

So, when I was younger, I stole things, like, I stole clothing, I stole lip gloss, and I look back upon that and see that I, perhaps was trying to fill the gap of what I needed where I could, sadly and close would never really fulfill the nourishment and the love and the safety and belonging that I actually needed. And so I had to take what was not mine and I couldn’t. I felt like I couldn’t take love and safety because it wasn’t there in the way that I needed it. So we might displace our needs, our basic needs of taking what we need and take beyond more than that.

Candice Wu 26:31

So I do wonder if this is the root of greed. Feeling like we can’t really have or take what we need, what we truly need, and then finding ways to replace it, that really don’t satisfy or quench that need but become a vacuum and insatiable, unfulfillable.

Candice Wu 27:00

And when we talk about taking, I don’t mean stealing, as well. And I don’t mean when it relates to someone else sexually, like taking what you want in terms of someone’s body or their energy because that’s also not yours to take and consent is an essential part of that process and another conversation in itself.

Candice Wu 27:27

So I want to pause a little bit in this conversation because it’s been a bit amorphous for me to talk about taking the development of taking, what taking refers to and I want to just allow a space and moment to check-in, for you to check-in with yourself if you desire about what your relationship with taking is.

Candice Wu 27:53

Do you allow yourself to take in general, to take what you need to take what you want? If you reach out to take, do you expect it to be there? Or, do you feel you can’t take what you need? Can’t have what you need or get what you need. Do you take more or too much? And is that just your perception that it’s too much or is it truly more than you need? For example, me stealing or hoarding or crossing boundaries and taking what’s not yours, are you taking more than your share? Because that can come from that same energy of lack or scarcity or some wound where you needed something and it wasn’t there for you. And if there is a kind of taking that is more than what you essentially need. Is there a place that you weren’t fulfilled in your needs?

Candice Wu 29:22

And as we go a little deeper here with more questions to ask yourself, what is your impression of your young life? And if you were able to reach out and take. If what you needed to take was there and available, was it abundant or was it scarce? And what comes up for you in terms of your images or sensations or feelings when we talk about taking and taking what you need?

Candice Wu 30:12

When I’ve worked with this, I had an impression of what it was like for me when I was in utero. It’s in ourselves and in our bones, the impression of whether or not we could take what we needed. We could have it, that could relate to our young life. It could relate to past life experiences or the sense of how it is in our lineage and ancestry, in our family systems in the world.

Candice Wu 30:53

So let’s switch gears here for a moment. If you need a little more time with those questions, feel free to rewind and repeat them or take a break here and pause. These are deep questions and they may not be answerable at the moment but something you take with you if they’re interesting or you’re curious.

Candice Wu 31:12

But now I want to take a moment to talk about our place in the world. And I will reference my teacher Suzi Tucker again, she says that the right place is always taken, and that can mean a million things.

Candice Wu 31:33

She says the right place is always taken not given and what I understand that to mean is that when we come into this life, there’s this way that we unconsciously sense that we need to be in a place, a literal position to our parents or others in our lineage that we stand in and that typically isn’t our place. It typically isn’t the place of a child to these parents, able to receive all they’re giving us and move forward in life as an adult. It typically is that we’re standing as a parent to someone else, or standing next to someone who’s dead. Because that experience hasn’t been integrated in the family system or nobody wants to look and so that place that we’re given, isn’t really the right one.

Candice Wu 32:34

And when we look at scarcity or lack, if we’re in a place that is not ours, there is nothing there for us that is truly ours, it’s not our right place. It’s not where we belong and it’s not where we can receive all the love and support that we need because it’s out of order.

Candice Wu 32:56

And in Family Constellations Work, we see this very dimensionally and literally, with people’s bodies representing the people in your lineage and where you’re standing, given the dynamics that are unconscious and what you were given in your life. And we look to where your places and what’s needed to support the shift of coming back to where your place is, and your place, the most simple truth is that your places as child to these parents, whether that’s mother and mother, mother and father, father and father, whoever, or however they describe themselves and it is only from that place that you’re able to receive the love that is for you, the belonging that is yours.

Candice Wu 33:56

The gifts in the lineage that are sending their way down, flowing their way down to you the life force that gives you and animates your expression in life, and allows you to turn around full, and with all of these gifts and strength, and support and love, to look towards your life with momentum and movement forward, that’s your place.

Candice Wu 34:26

And that right place is always taken, because we’re always, almost always, I’ve never seen differently, given a place that’s not ours. And so when we take our rightful place, it is us coming as adults to say, this is my place and this was my place as a child, and to recover all of what is there for us to receive and take what is all there for us. So that we can move forward in life and we can give. We can be, we can live, we can experience with fullness and ease, and it doesn’t feel restricted by the fact that part of our capacity, our energy, and our awareness is somewhere else in a different spot but more of us is here.

Candice Wu 35:24

And the interesting thing is we often don’t take our place because we feel we need to be there for someone else or protect someone else or, we can’t get what we need in our true place and we must come to find what it is that would truly be there if we did take our place.

Candice Wu 35:48

We see this also with leaders. If they don’t take up that leadership role, are they going to be able to do it wholeheartedly, like if others push them into that role, and there’s a part of them that doesn’t truly want it?

Candice Wu 36:04

Taking our place might mean taking up our alignment with who we truly are, who we really are, and what that means. And sometimes that’s scary, to be our full and whole selves when we’ve had experiences or messages that tell us, we’re too much or we shouldn’t be ourselves, we shouldn’t have what we want or do or be the thing that we are, the way that we are when there’s a judgment towards us.

Candice Wu 36:43

And so it’s hard to take our place sometimes, but isn’t that what we’re here to do? And what if everyone did that, lived in the truth of who we are, and expressed it just as we are and if we allow each other to do that and honored each other for it.

Candice Wu 37:04

And I do believe we have that chance right now as a collective to begin and continue for many doing that, seeing yourself as you are more and more, seeing others when they express themselves, taking our own place, taking up the love that we are, taking up the beauty and the gifts that we are and allowing them to express in a way that is right for us. There are belief sets and messages that we get, as I said that stop us from taking our place or taking what we need, taking in general, if we go back to this more general topic of taking, taking what you desire.

Candice Wu 37:58

For me, I’ve had messages of, I’m selfish, I shouldn’t take what I need. I shouldn’t take what I want, that I have to give to others before taking what I need. I have to be selfless and not concerned with myself at all, that it’s cruel to take what I need or others won’t have what they need if I take it. And that refers again, in my opinion, to lack taking more than you need. But this is all relative, isn’t it? What’s needed and what’s not and who decides that? Only you decide what you need.

Candice Wu 38:42

And if you’re truly in connection with your deeper self, your inner self, then what you need is what you need period. And you can come to find more and more layers of why you need what you need or why you desire what you desire. And yet, do you feel worthy of taking your place, taking what you need and what you desire or taking what’s yours. You have a place in this world, that’s a given because you’re here. So if you have a place, there’s all sorts of abundance that is yours. It’s yours. It’s nobody else’s, it’s here for you, and there’s space for you to have what you need and what you desire. And when we truly feel and believe that that’s true and live that, it’s my sense that what we have then becomes enough and we may not need or want, as much as we might have in the past or think we do.

Candice Wu 40:11

So as you take this in for you, what kinds of beliefs come up about taking what’s needed or taking your place and what you desire? Are you allowed to? Can you?

Candice Wu 40:28

And what are the possibilities for you if you use the energy of taking, that assertive energy that allows you to have what you need? The baby that just sucks on mom’s breast and just takes the food they need, because it’s there.

Candice Wu 40:49

Where in your life is this energy needed or can be utilized to bring you more in yourself and to bring a sense of wholeness to yourself and congruence?

Candice Wu 41:10

So as we conclude today’s episode, I plan on taking a lot of time to myself and letting my friends and family know that I may not be as available, putting certain boundaries in place so that I’m not overextending myself this month, taking up space and letting my body unravel and unwind even more and feel safe and at ease and what do you need for yourself and what is it time for here? What if you could take what you needed and also let others do that when they need it.

Candice Wu 42:05

So thanks for joining me today and next week we will be talking about receiving and what may block receiving, what gets tied up in receiving. It’s balanced with giving and how we can be in a more receptive mode so that we can receive more of what’s here for us.

Candice Wu 42:34

Thanks so much for joining me today and if you want to be on my newsletter, I’ve decided to take more time in between newsletters, so it’s coming out generally every three weeks now.

Candice Wu 42:46

And the newsletter comes out with updates about me, the podcast events and retreats that are coming up, and self-love notes. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/embody.

Candice Wu 43:01

It’s always wonderful to have you here and I’m so grateful for your support. If these podcasts touch you or support you in any way, and you’d like to give back or send some gratitude to me or support the podcast, you can do so at CandiceWu.com/support by offering a one-time contribution, or subscribe to a monthly contribution that just continues on an ongoing basis. And at that website too, you can find all sorts of options for you to receive something in return for your contribution like personal meditations, or you can be part of the Embodied group healing call that happens once a month and even the one on one retreats and personal sessions and other experiences that I offer. All of that goes to support the podcast which offers free meditations and experiences here.

Candice Wu 43:59

You can also find the free meditations at CandiceWu.com/meditations. And there you can search for any meditation based on what you might be needing in your life right now or any topic that has been on your mind and see what there is on the podcast from me and my guests. Again, that’s at Candicewu.com/ meditations.

Candice Wu 44:25

It’s been a true pleasure to have you and I can’t believe that it’s actually been two years since I went to Chiang Mai, Thailand and that’s where the birth of the podcast happened in February, a year and about eight months ago so we’re coming up on two years of podcast, crazy!

Candice Wu 44:50

Well, everyone, take care and see you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

This episode is all about the small, tiny little things that happen energetically and physiologically that we can look out for that tell us that the body is healing or deepening in its capacity. We’ll talk about coherence and how to attune to our bodies’ coherence and vibrate with the rightness of our being, trusting that it knows its way and following its lead. We’ll also talk about when you feel stuck, and how to support yourself in noticing any little difference that’s happening.

Candice Wu 0:37

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 0:51

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 1:11

This episode is sponsored by the Embodied Healing Group Call, which is a once a month group call that’s no more than four people each, where you are supported in being at ease in your own body and soul, tapping into your intuition and wisdom, working with the semantics and ancestral healing around anything you’re experiencing or challenged within your life. You can find the group call at CandiceWu.com/groupcall. The contribution that you make for the group call is put right to the podcast, the production, editing and all of the work that goes to create quality podcasts, which is a labor of love.

Candice Wu 1:52

So, funny, not so funny thing is that after I recorded this entire episode, I realized that I already did this episode. It’s Episode 74, The Potency of Tiny Movements, Subtlety, and Coherence, and I probably did that episode after the first module of Somatic Experiencing advanced level where we focused in so much about coherence, and it inspired me, but right now, what I notice is that tuning into these nuances of the really small things that are happening, create a huge ripple effect, and allow the healing to come with so much ease, allow us to feel safer, more easily with less suffering and struggle, because we’re moving with a flow, the natural flow and innate intelligence of the body.

Candice Wu 2:48

If you want to find that episode, it’s at CandiceWu.com/ep74 or /coherence, and that episode talks more about how we can find the places that we’re doing it right in our lives, where our bodies are supporting us and our well being, and how we can truly look at those things instead of overlooking what’s happening.

Candice Wu 3:13

In this episode, I list the specific physiological nervous system features that the shifts that might happen while we’re feeling into something, while we’re in any sort of healing process or if you’re in therapy, and you’re talking to your therapist. These are things you can notice to boost that process of growth, expansion, and feeling like yourself.

Candice Wu 3:41

Hello, everyone. Thanks so much for joining me today. It’s great to have you back. As always, I just got back from San Diego on Somatic Experiencing Advanced Level 2 Training. So, I am finally after three years done with the Somatic Experiencing training. This is fantastic, I still need to finish my consultation hours to officially become a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and SAP, but as many of you know, I’ve been doing this work for a long time, and even before the training, a lot of the embodied healing work was already coming to me in different avenues, different types of modalities, and this is a nice combination of all those things.

Candice Wu 4:28

In the Somatic Experiencing Advanced 2 Training, we did a lot more of touch work, which is making contact with the body and attuning to the body’s coherence, the body’s intelligence and what’s going right, and listening, being able to listen with my hands, what’s happening in the body and to support the natural healing abilities and potential of the body.

Candice Wu 4:54

So, this work I’ve been doing for quite some time and it also connects with Reiki and other kinds of, kinds of touch work, but this training offered some different aspects to nuances to add to my practice, which includes working with the joints and the different sections of the body, they call diaphragms and supporting the movement of what wants to shift in the body, to bring us to a deeper expansion and capacity. So, I love doing touch work it feels very natural to me, and I’m continuing to offer that whether that’s on a table like a massage table or seated or well in movement to my clients that are seeing me in person, so, some people do see me in Michigan, when I’m visiting Chicago or New York or other places, we can always connect up and there’s always distance touch with the online work and remote work that I’m doing with most of my clients.

Candice Wu 5:59

Lately, with the horses, I’ve been very tuned into the quality of how I can communicate with the horses, psychically, like with my mind with my attention, and so, when I’m asking my horse to walk in a direction, I see it happen in my mind and send my energy to communicate that before I gesture with any of my body, and often, if we’re in tune, my horse will already do what I’m asking before my body gestures physically. And so, I love that I get to see that. I can ask my horse to speed up and do a trot and then even speed up faster and canter or slow down or do other things. I’m still working with some of those basics, and when I was in the training, I noticed that we were also tuned into that process of placing our attention somewhere or withdrawing our attention from someone’s body before our physical body moved, and it is incredibly powerful. So, the power of our attention is real, and that’s what this whole podcast is about today.

Candice Wu 7:26

About three weeks ago now, I spoke about nervous system overwhelm. So, if you’ve been feeling tired or shut down, numb, anxious, depressed or stressed and overwhelmed, that episode might support you in shifting in the nervous system so that you can come to more safety, which allows more energy and also allows the baseline for healing.

Candice Wu 7:52

In that episode, I talked about how supporting the body to feel safer, allows the next thing to happen, allows true healing in an organic way to begin to come online, and I also give ways to work with that. And one thing that I noticed is that if we are truly attuned to the little things that come out of just the basic support for the body, then that enhances it even more. It’s like it multiplies every moment. You place your attention and awareness, with curiosity, compassion, and witness. So, what I mean is that when we’re supporting the body to feel safer, for example, I used making contact with your body, self-touch. It seems like such a basic thing, and almost silly or stupid to do that, but when we touch our body, it reminds our body of our container.

Candice Wu 8:58

Of course, a lot of other things can happen, too, like, your body might become triggered or different emotions may come up, but you might feel a little bit of a deeper breath in that moment, a spontaneous one or something shifts inside and you begin to cry, and these are signs that the body is coming to more safety, the body is shifting, and there’s healing happening, even if it begins to feel worse before it starts to feel better, but what I’ve noticed is that we’re not always aware of what those little things are, and we may not even be looking for them. And when we do that, we just bypass what’s happening. We almost understate it so much that that is a detriment to what’s going on.

Candice Wu 9:51

Of course, the body will show us again, and if we miss it again, it will try to show us again in another way so it’s okay, but if I In my own healing process, in my own deepening of my presence that when I’m aware of these little things that are happening, then it’s like, everything just moves from there so much easier, and isn’t that what we want, the ease of being in ourselves and the ease of going into challenging emotions rather than the toughness of that or the stress and pain of that.

Candice Wu 10:33

So, in this episode, I want to talk more about those things. If you want to find the podcast on overwhelm and 12 things you can do to support yourself in feeling safer and less overwhelmed, you can find that at CandiceWu.com/overwhelm, and it can be a nice preface or aftermath to this conversation today.

Candice Wu 10:58

In the mental health field, the coaching world, even the world of motivation and positivity, which I have my opinions on, there’s this thing about noticing the positive things or noticing strength or qualities of yourself and being grateful for those things, and what we know is when we place our attention there, that grows.

Candice Wu 11:23

On the other hand, we also do need to work with the uncomfortable stuff that’s trying to show itself so that our whole capacity can expand, and that allows the good things to expand, the things that feel pleasurable rather. If we’re not going to judge things as good and bad, the things that feel pleasant, but when we do speak to noticing those things, sometimes, we’re just noticing from our mind, from the logical space, from the head, and if we let the feeling and the awareness go all the way into the body and slow it down so that our nervous system and awareness can digest and integrate what’s happening, and we give ourselves that much more chance to heal and to feel at ease and ourselves, and to let the body naturally tickets course on how it needs to move through whatever it is you’re experiencing.

Candice Wu 12:30

So, how about noticing the nervous system’s responses, the body’s responses as another aspect of what we’re noticing, which we’re not always trying to do? The intelligence of the body, the whole physiological system that is made up of energy or energetic blueprint underneath that the consciousness of who we are and of all beings, that is so brilliantly intelligent that it works without us working it. In yogic practice and Ayurveda, the Vedas. They call it Buddhi.

Candice Wu 13:15

Buddhi is intellect, and it’s not the mind’s intellect. It’s not intellectualism, but it’s that intelligence that is innate and knowing of how to be and how to exist in a natural way. So, that is in us. You have that and whether or not it feels like your body knows what to do, at a very deep level, it does. There’s something that is adaptive and intelligent. There’s something coherent inside that is keeping you alive, and by just acknowledging that, and finding someplace where you can believe in that, the body begins to come into even more coherence and presence with this present moment.

Candice Wu 14:15

If you think about a little seedling coming up from the ground, a little bit of a green sprout, tiny, and if you don’t see it, you could just step right over it or maybe you walk too close to it or put your hands too close to it and the dirt just covers it up. It just gets squashed and it doesn’t get to grow, but if you see it, you actually see it instead of not see it, if you place your attention on it, then it gets to grow, it gets a chance. It gets a chance to grow a little bit taller or bigger or another little tiny leaf sprout.

Candice Wu 15:05

Our bodies are similar in that way, where if we notice a tiny thing that happens a shift, then the next thing can happen, but if we bypass that we don’t even see that it’s happening, aren’t looking for it in an open way, then we miss that small chance for it to grow even bigger, and to expand even more. What we also see in the world of family constellations is that something had to go right in the ancestry, in your lineage for you to exist.

Candice Wu 15:48

So, if you come from a family that has lots of challenging experiences, traumas, losses, pain, fighting perhaps, imbalances, there’s still something that went right for you to exist, and it’s often the force of love that compels that, and somewhere along the way, it gets tangled up and or last underneath the other symptoms that are making its way to the surface, the other emotions that want to be seen or the outcome of something when it’s farther removed from its original root context, and that we could have a very deep conversation, but for today, the point is that something had to go right for you to exist. Someone did it right, probably more than one person.

Candice Wu 16:53

And if you take that to a personal level in your life now, some things had to go right, you did something right to get yourself here in your life now, even if you’re suffering a lot or you have major stressors and challenges going on, something had to go right, and what is that? If even right now, you touch into that, what would happen if you just sat with that experience of that thing going right? Are you making that choice that worked for you or that barrage you all the way to now, even if there were things that you regret or wished would have gone differently? There’s got to be at least one thing, maybe. Let’s see. So, as you do that, feel free to notice if there are any sensations happening or if that’s accessible to you, and we’ll take this deeper in experiential this week, but just for now, touching in.

Candice Wu 18:16

So, the power of your awareness, your awareness is your inner witness, the part of you that observes and can watch what’s happening. When we’re deeply traumatized or even a little bit traumatized or when someone in our lineage has been and it’s been inherited or if we’re never taught to witness, we can be so identified with what we’re experiencing that we become it. We think we are that emotion that we’re feeling. We think we’re angry, that’s who we are, and it’s not just the thinking, it’s all of our energies kind of glommed on to that experience, and we lose the ability to track what’s going on. We lose our power of choice and freedom, and to some degree, our capacity to be in that experience is lesser and it makes it a little more overwhelming. At least in my experience, you may have a totally different experience.

Candice Wu 19:30

Our awareness is who we are. It’s the consciousness in us. It’s the consciousness of the source of things, but individualized is who we are, and that awareness that watches what’s happening, watches the thoughts and emotions and sensations and movements. That part of us, because it is connected with source, has the ability to boost our healing power just by noticing, just by placing attention and staying with. It doesn’t require anything else, but that kind of presence, the quality of being here with a little softness and curiosity or with neutrality.

Candice Wu 20:21

So, if we place our awareness with the things that begin to shift as we begin a healing experience or be in the present moment, then that amplifies and just continues on with the momentum. So, I want to talk about here now, just the small things that you can look out for small healing signs, tiny things that happen physiologically that you can notice that, means, that the body is moving in a direction of healing or of growth. Some of these may not seem like they make sense, but I always go back to the analogy of cleaning your room, but sometimes things feel worse before they get better.

Candice Wu 21:19

And so, maybe, a shift is noticing an emotion that you were numb to before, but that coming online and feeling that emotion actually means your body feel safer and able to be in that experience, and I talk more about that in the overwhelm episode that I mentioned earlier, when your body comes out of freeze state.

Candice Wu 21:47

So, let’s talk about those little tiny things that you might notice in your body shift, and if you notice it with a sense that something’s happening, this is different. “Wow!” or, “Oh, interesting!” And then the next thing can happen, and the next thing. This is also extremely helpful for the part of you, if you have a part of you that can feel stuck or feel that nothing’s changing, nothing’s happening, you’re not where you want to be, and by noticing small changes, we can start to notice and allow bigger ones.

Candice Wu 22:33

So, here’s a culminated list of some of the things that I noticed that come from somatic experiencing the practice, as well as yoga, family constellations, and other indigenous practices, and this is all just coming from different angles going to the same place.

Candice Wu 22:54

So, first, one of the biggest things that we can notice is a spontaneous organic breath. Suddenly, your body goes “ahaaa” and it happens naturally or the breath comes into a different part of your body or the breath is a little bit fuller than the last breath or feels more flowing and useful. While we can control that to some degree, we can choose a breath that goes deeper. I’m talking about the kind that happens without you choosing it, the involuntary kind, that shows the nervous system is coming into more safety right now.

Candice Wu 23:43

A second thing you might notice is a micro-movement in the body or a large movement, any shift of the physical body, your arms or legs, your shoulders, your neck, your jaw, a tiny little shift or a tiny little desire to move in a certain way, and that might lead to the body soothing itself. For example, suddenly your hand just goes to your chest, at your heart. That’s a movement or maybe your arm wants to move side to side, that something or maybe that tiny movement starts the process of a completion of a fight or flight response. I talk more about fight responses in the anger episode at CandiceWu.com/anger, and flight responses a little bit in the overwhelm episode.

Candice Wu 24:50

A shift that is healing can feel different from a management strategy, a coping strategy that you typically use to deal with what’s going on or to set something that’s going on aside or to ignore it, and we do that because it might feel a little too overwhelming to feel or we’ve been used to, just doing this habit that pushed us something else away or changes it, so you don’t have to feel it. So, check if that feeling or movement and shift is part of a strategy to manage your feelings that you know already or if it’s something new coming up.

Candice Wu 25:32

What also can come in the movement is a self-protective response. Maybe you start to notice your shoulder tense up and your elbow wanting to come up, and lift up to put your arm so it’s like a guard to your body, and this requires a slow process of sensing in or maybe even when you’re telling the story, your arm just kind of does that. And if you notice those movements, then the next thing might begin to happen.

Candice Wu 26:08

Another thing to notice that shows that healing is happening is seeing differently. If you notice yourself seeing more or more clearly, sometimes seeing something that you didn’t see before or noticing something in your periphery or noticing colors and details more vividly. Perhaps, your eye gaze is softer and more expansive and relaxed, less constricted, and all that shows that the eyes are moving from a constriction that is required when your body feels unsafe. So, if you think about a threat or something happening, that you need to look out for, your eyes become very sharp, and your vision wants to search and land right on the things that are dangerous or to find those things. And the opposite being, your pupils are open and you’re able to softly look around and take in things of pleasure. That says that your nervous system is feeling calmer and safer, more present.

Candice Wu 27:32

You might notice a settling in your body, someplace that goes “ahhhh”, and has a release or feeling of relief, lightness, expansion or spaciousness, maybe a pleasant feeling in some part of the body, even just a tiny little part. So, if you look for that, then the healing process can continue and amplify, even if it’s your ear where a pinky finger, maybe your heels come to the ground or some of your muscles dropdown more into your seat or if you’re lying down some parts of your back, start to release even more.

Candice Wu 28:19

Another thing to notice is your digestion coming back online. When we’re in a fight-flight or freeze response of the nervous system, the digestion goes offline. The energy goes towards the lens or in a conservation mode, so that it can eventually protect itself and come back to safety. If your body’s coming back to safety, you might hear gurgling sounds in your stomach or burping, feelings of movement in your gut, energy moving around, you might have more saliva or feel hungry or thirsty, need to go to the bathroom or eliminate… farting or just any response of the digestive system that wants to happen. Coughing might be part of this as well, gagging, things that are shifting in your throat, your mouth.

Candice Wu 29:24

Another thing to notice is sensation or energy, tingling down your limbs or in certain parts of your body. Your temperature might change. Heat is an indicator of deactivation, actually, the body is cooling down on the inside and expresses the heat outward. You might notice better hearing, ability to hear sound better or to hear it in a more appropriate way if where you were hypervigilant to sounds, hypersensitive, that maybe softens itself, and you’re just hearing what you need to hear, you’re able to block out certain sounds.

Candice Wu 30:12

And then you might also notice more resource or pleasure, seeing things that can support you, and openness to receiving or the ability and capacity to notice a loving person and receive what they may have to give you in your imagination or in real life or you may naturally gravitate towards feeling positivity or possibility, a feeling of gratitude.

Candice Wu 30:44

There might be some sort of openness that wasn’t there before even in a sense of “maybe” rather than “no”. So, noticing the difference between “maybe” and “no”, that that’s a shift where the ability to say “no” versus “maybe or yes”, which is related to a shift in your ability to say or do something that you want to do in your life with a little bit more ease or to be able to move towards it in some way, the capacity or a little bit of space to imagine or turn towards what was challenging or scary previously or what was something that your body just did not want to face, the ability to feel through what might have been more challenging before and even just feeling a little bit.

Candice Wu 31:40

You also might notice changes in your skin tone, a flushed or pinkish skin tone can signify that energy is coming into that space, into your body, into your face. It might connect with some activation that’s happening, that’s coming to deactivation, and coming towards a parasympathetic state in your body. You might notice an emotion that you’ve had, for example, grief, and as you touch back into the grief, notice if that grief is exactly the same in terms of how it feels in your body, what it might look like if you could see it, the intensity level, how much it takes up in you or feels your body feels like it can hold that feeling or not, and how much is that the same? Exact same or is just a little bit different?

Candice Wu 32:44

So, these are just a short list of things that you might notice as a change. The real question is just asking yourself, “what’s different right now? Is it different? Is anything different or is it exactly the same? And if it is exactly the same, you might notice that and take a break, and come back and see what else.

Candice Wu 33:11

And you might experience other signals or shifts that are happening for you, in your mind, the way you’re thinking, the way you’re noticing space between you and the experience you’re having, a shift in your body sensation or feeling of energy, and be careful to judge things as good or bad, because what may seem bad may actually be something that’s supporting the healing process. So, for example, if you’re constantly keyed up and exhausted, notice the next time you become tired if you’re doing some sort of healing process or something different, and when you feel that quality of tiredness, is it the same as the kind of exhaustion that came with being keyed up? Or is it the kind where your body is truly able to deeply rest. And it’s a different feeling that allows something else different to happen.

Candice Wu 34:24

So, as you notice these tiny little healing movements, keep in mind that these things may happen when you’re experiencing a conversation with a friend or with your therapist or healing practitioner or a coach or they may be happening on your own as you just tuned in. And what I’ve noticed is that if you’re working with someone who’s attuned to the nervous system, like a Somatic Experiencing or some sort of somatic therapy practitioner that’s trauma aware, then they can notice those things with you, and that adds another layer of validation and witness to how your body’s doing it right.

Candice Wu 35:09

It took me several times of experiencing it with a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, where they were saying, “Oh!” Notice how you naturally went and touched your thighs, and how for you now it’s feeling really soothing. So, your body knew what to do, and that gave me another layer of trust, but it really took many times of me hearing that for it to sink in another level, and another level and another level, to this space where I feel deeply trusting of what my body is showing me and what my body wants, and it feels so much more in sync with itself and in sync with how I’m expressing out in the world, what I reach for, how I move, what I choose, it all feels way more congruent, and I’m sure I can go many more levels beyond this, but I’m quite happy with where it’s at. So, when you have the support of someone who’s attuned to this and trained in this can really amplify your process.

Candice Wu 36:18

So, today’s episode is quite a short episode compared to most, but I wanted to leave that as is because it’s great to just have this bite-size experience. And if you want to tune in later this week, I’ll have an experiential that supports you in being with what’s going well, and noticing coherence in your body, noticing coherence in your being, and that can support wherever you are in life, for you to deepen in your capacity, to be with yourself and to be connected.

Candice Wu 36:54

I have always believed that good things come in small packages and With the healing process, it’s no different. So, we noticed these really small things. It just has so much potency, just like homeopathy. So, see what lands with you, and what you take with you. If you want to touch into this in writing, the transcript will be out very soon, and if you’d rather have this in a shortened and condensed version, there’s a blog post at CandiceWu.com/tinyhealingsteps that lists out these little things that you can notice to support yourself.

Candice Wu 37:40

There’s no one answer and no one way that the body heals and these are just some of the things you can notice, so that the next thing can happen, and the next thing can unfold and emerge for you in the way that your body wants it to and needs it, too.

Candice Wu 37:56

Before you go, I’d love for you to join my email list where I say send out a newsletter every other or every third week. This is where I share my travel updates, things that are going on events, retreats, self-love notes, podcasts, etc. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/embody, and be sure to check out all the transcripts for both the episodes with my guests and by myself as well as the experiential that are up on the website at CandiceWu.com/podcast. Under each episode, where you hit play, there’s a plus sign that pulls out into the transcript. So, if you rather digest things through reading them or skimming, it’s all there for you, and the ones that are not will be up shortly.

Candice Wu 38:49

There’s also a database for the podcast that you can search a podcast that might fit for you, and a database of the meditations and experientials by me and my guests, that one is that CandiceWu.com/meditations and all of the podcasts are meant to be resources for you to access at times that you need them. So, an experiential that you need, if you want to feel a certain way or to support something that’s happening and yourself, search what you need, and take what you need and just lovingly leave the rest.

Candice Wu 39:26

Thanks so much for joining me today, and I look forward to seeing you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Introduction

This experiential is to support you in what's going well as well as physiological coherence, and it can support you in times where you're feeling stuck, anxious or overwhelmed or anytime that you'd like to resonate with your body's intelligence.

This experiential is connected with the podcast about The Potency of Noticing Small Shifts and Tiny Healing Steps in the Body.

So, noticing the little things that can support more healing and more deepening or expansion, more capacity to be in ourselves, and connected with ourselves.

You can find the full episode at CandiceWu.com/smallshifts.

While noticing what's going well in your body or life can be such a simple thing to do, it can have a very profound and deep effect for the nervous system.

So, take a moment to begin just where you are right now.

Begin Anywhere

I invite you to take your hands and to touch your body in a way that offers soothing to it, asking nothing of your body, your heart or your mind right now, and allowing yourself to receive your own contact and attention, right now.

And as you do this, will begin to notice what's coherent in your being, right now, because you're alive, says that there's some semblance of coherence in you.

There's some intelligence of life force and consciousness moving you through the world even if there's suffering or struggle, even if you've had trauma or overwhelming experiences or things are not feeling like they're going well.

As you make contact with yourself and your body now, notice any place in yourself that feels even neutral or feels a deeper breath, some warmth or release something that might feel pleasant.

And if that's challenging, just imagine what it could feel like if you felt your own coherence.

And now, open up your awareness to the last day or a few days or even farther into the last week or month if you need to, and notice even the tiniest thing that says, “You're doing something right.”

Maybe that's flossing or having made yourself a meal or gotten yourself a smoothie, something healthy or maybe that's doing some work that you've been wanting to do for a while or taking the garbage out, anything that indicates you're doing something right.

You could also be being kind to someone, being kind to yourself, taking space, having boundaries.

These are signs of your presence being here and loving.

Appreciate and Notice

So, take this time here to appreciate any little things that you've chosen, that you've done right or that someone else has appreciated in you that you may typically overlook.

As you notice this, sense if it's easy or hard to do, just getting curious about what your own experience in this process is.

Be with how it feels to notice something that's going well in your life or that you've done right.

Feel any tiny little movements or shifts in the body.

Notice your breathing. Notice any emotions that are happening.

Feel any sensation and where it is in your body.

Notice how you experience yourself or your connection with yourself, and feel free to open up time even further.

Notice in the last two to three months something that's gone well or that you've done right.

Feel the effect it has on you as you notice that and bring that to mind and let yourself savor any good feeling or neutral feeling that comes from it.

What if You Noticed Yourself More?

And as we bring this experience to a close today, I'd like to ask you:

What if you notice more often what's going well where there's some place of coherence or intelligence working its way and it's magic through you? …Any way that your body supports itself or that you support yourself or others.

What if you notice that more often?

What would life be like?

And now, as we close today, I invite you to honor and thank yourself for taking the time to appreciate yourself.

Candice Wu 0:00

This episode is not just for the healers and empaths out there in the world, the therapists, helpers, counselors, wellness practitioners, doctors, firefighters, anyone who’s in a caretaking role, but it’s for everyone. In this episode, we look at empathy and where it goes wrong, from what place do we support other people or offer our help or care? Is it from a wounded place or is it from a place of wholeness and loving that goes both ways? We look at how it is that there are subtle ways that we try to save people, but that may be coming from our own fears, and how death, fear of death and fear of pain might be connected or tied up in these interactions.

Candice Wu 0:58

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 1:11

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 1:29

I want to give a shout out to all of you who support me and the podcast by offering your money and donation to contribute to the behind the scenes production of the podcast. Each episode takes several hours to edit and produce, to format and to publish, and also, not to mention, my own creative effort of sitting with what’s here with me receiving your feedback, receiving information from around me to create something that feels alive and vulnerable, real. So, all of your contributions and donations are so wonderful. I appreciate it so much, and it really touches me that you’re willing to offer that.

Candice Wu 2:19

If the podcast has inspired you in any way or supported you, offered you something and you want to give back, I would so appreciate if you did and checked out all of my offerings that you can receive in return or just to offer donation without anything in return. And I have a new page for all that it’s at CandiceWu.com/support, I used to use Patreon, and we’re in the process now of shifting everything over from Patreon over to my website, just so that all of your every penny can go towards the production of the podcast, and the least amount of processing fees can be taken from that.

Candice Wu 3:03

So, jump on over to CandiceWu.com/support if you’re interested in checking that out, and you can follow the links to my offerings, all of my offerings, my one on one client sessions, the Ally with Death Experience, which will soon be an audio experience as well, the Sound Sleep Album, all of my retreats and workshops, as well as the personal meditations that you can order, and the embodied group call that happens once a month, all of that is in support of the podcast and the new creations that I’m putting forward and developing. Thank you so much for considering donating, and it’s always touching to hear from you, even if it’s to share your feedback about what’s working for you and what’s not on the podcast, and the experientials with the guests or to ask questions and offer topics that you want to hear about, and by just jumping on and listening or sharing it with a friend that you feel might be supported by one of the topics or experientials. Thank you so much.

Candice Wu 4:11

So, welcome to the podcast, I’ve still been in Michigan and enjoying it so much. It’s interesting that everything in my body is calling me to stay very, very grounded. I even tried to schedule a flight to see a friend, and the internet dropped out several times. Their website wasn’t working that the flight that I wanted to get was through my rewards card in my credit card, and so, I kept trying day after day and finally, I gave up on the credit card rewards. I just thought, okay, I’ll just pay for this. And I found a flight that I had been looking at previously, and then it turned to like $500 to go from here to Milwaukee, and it was like forget it, I just take the train, which is only going to, you know, be another hour of train ride, no big deal, and it may cost me like $58 or something like that.

Candice Wu 5:09

It really wasn’t about the money. It was just clear to me though, that I was getting stopped in my efforts here several times, and I listened to those cues, whether that’s a message from the universe, or if you see it, that maybe my spirit guides were sending me a message or just something in me was really not wanting that and it was manifesting or just coincidence. Whatever it is, I like to receive that as a message that I meant to stand the ground. So, of course, I booked an Amtrak ticket, and that just went through really easily.

Candice Wu 5:48

So, I do notice that one thing was moved through easily, it’s usually the right thing with when I’m feeling at ease, when I’m feeling at peace and content, do you notice that in your experiences where are your feelings that decisions come with ease and you feel very at peace? Do you feel that way? There’s a sense in me that even when I feel a little bit of anxiety about something, I first investigate what that is, is it a fear? Or is it something in me that’s telling me, “No, it’s, you’re not really fully in this.” Lately, I’ve been almost, my body is almost demanded that I be 100% in my decisions, in how I spend my time and in what I’m doing in my life at the bottom line, and in that moment, I noticed that I chose to do something recently and it was somewhat a big commitment, and it was only like 95% in it in myself, something and he was like, “Oh, I’m not sure I want to do this.” And I ended up doing it for other reasons.

Candice Wu 7:04

There were some reasons I did want to do it, of course, but while I was experiencing it, I saw all the reasons emerge to the surface as to why I was hesitant. There was a lot in me about the situation as well as I wanted to spend a lot of alone time in doing certain things for myself, that I needed to be doing even just sitting and being present, lately, through all that’s been happening energetically and astrologically. I’ve needed a lot of time to just sit and digest all that’s happening inside and out. So, the information I’m getting right now is for me to be 100% a yes, about the things that I choose in my life. I’m noticing that when it’s a maybe or if I’m not 100%, that it’s a no until I do feel completely all in.

Candice Wu 8:14

I know there are things that I need to do that help, on some level, I don’t want to do like certain tasks. I don’t love doing administrative tasks. I don’t love doing just like the technical things anymore, as much as I used to, and yet, underneath it all, I know, I want to be doing this because that’s for the podcast or that’s for this blog post that I’m writing or the newsletter or something that really comes down to, “Oh, yes, I do want to do that.” So, if I can’t find a reason all the way down to the bottom, then maybe it’s good to just let it go.

Candice Wu 8:54

Before we jump into the episode today, I also want to update you about the past life experience that came up, that I talked about in the podcast two weeks ago. This podcast is at Candice without comm slash deep mystery. If you want to check it out, I talked about how I went camping, slept with a knife in my hands because I made some bad choices, one could say, but those choices led me to reveal a past life memory and its fullness which allowed me to heal on an even deeper level, and where I’m at now is claiming that part of me, that is me, from this past life, that has all sorts of knowing and wisdom.

Candice Wu 9:44

So, after that acupuncture appointment that I spoke about, where this whole memory revealed to me that I was Native American, and had gotten raped by a white man and that my father had to leave me to die, I went in to see what was the next step as far as this memory like, why did I need to be seeing this now and what was it that wanted to reveal itself to me, from me? And where I was led was to claim this young woman that I was, as a Native American?

Candice Wu 10:24

My body gives me confirmation when I sense into and imagine what that life was like, and then I see or think something very quickly, and the confirmation I got was that I was a young girl hitting puberty and stepping into a rite of passage moment of being a woman, and I wanted to do a ceremony that really fit who I was and I was very fierce, was like Warrier, very stubborn. I wanted to do things my own way, very strong, and a leader wanting to be a leader, and in that time, I’m not sure how supported I was, in some ways, I felt too big to fit into the containers of the tribe, and it seems like the women of the tribe wanted to do the ceremony the way that we do the ceremony, and I got really upset and wanted to do it my way, and that’s where I got into trouble.

Candice Wu 11:34

So, as I looked into the eyes of my past self, I could see the ferocity in her, the fire and fierceness. I could see that she knew how to live in the wild. She knew the plants, she knew the horses, she knew the animals, she knew earth, and the medicine that each of those bring, as well as song in ceremony and how to fight. She knew how to use bow and arrow, a knife, and to maneuver and to use fight energy if she needed to protect herself or to hunt, she was a hunter. So, that just catalyzed in me the desire to take my ability to protect myself and be strong in myself to another level. A lot of people take martial arts or do some self-defense classes. I’ve done both of those at some point, and now, at this time in my life, I want to experience some different things and sharpen those skills that I do have. So, I signed up for a lesson in sharp weapons.

Candice Wu 12:53

While I was camping, I was, you know, the thought the only thing I had was the knife in my hands, and I thought, okay, I’ll just sleep with it. If you had listened to that episode, you’ll get the full picture, and so, now I’m just thinking, well, if I’m going to have a knife in my hand, I better know how to use it, and hopefully I never need to use it. When you learn martial arts, it’s not to learn to literally just fight people, anywhere you go and to be violent or aggressive in your life, it’s just that you develop the confidence that you’re able to use certain parts of your body and energy to protect yourself or to do something that’s necessary if you’re ever in that situation, and whether you are not in that situation, that confidence that you can develop is really strengthening for the whole nervous system, for who we are in the world.

Candice Wu 13:52

If we all feel more confident, more in our bodies, more able to protect ourselves, we can feel safer, and that’s the idea now, so, I’m taking the sharp weapons class, and combat weapons. I think that’s like a baseball bat and how to use things to hit in the proper way, as well as archery and bow and arrow, and it’s really fun, it’s so fun. And I’m also able to use my eyes in a different way to direct my energy and be a little more precise at a distance, especially with archery, I find that my aim is horrible, and it has a lot to do with my focus and ability to sustain that focus at a distance, and I don’t think it’s coincidence that I am nearsighted and need glasses or contacts.

Candice Wu 14:56

And also this past life part of me now is being more integrated into me, I pictured her integrating into my body, and being me, which is the truth, I believe, well, that’s the truth, I believe, is that through the many lives that we have, we cultivate different knowing and sets of wisdom that are in our bodies and moving wisdom. And when we birth into the next life, sometimes, we want to develop different parts of ourselves, and we might forget the previous parts or we might remember them and be a genius in that, but there’s something here in this life for us to learn, and there’s a way in which we can claim, remember, and use all the wisdom that came from different lives, that we developed in different lives.

Candice Wu 15:59

And recently, I’ve been more attuned to the interstellar world, the world outside of earth, and that there are other dimensions within earth and outside of earth that we might be learning in as well and bringing those tools into our lives here or maybe that’s where we’re moving on to next. I never thought I would believe in that exactly or I guess we just couldn’t find a way for it to click with me that that existed, you know, and some people talk about aliens or other life, and it’s starting to make a little more sense to me that we as energies, as part of the universal consciousness, we find ourselves in different dimensions or we go to different places and times and lifetimes to know the wholeness of the universe, all the possibilities, all the energies that we can be, that we are, and we get to experience human life to heal and to learn and to grow, and to be and to honor who we are.

Candice Wu 17:20

So, as I look into myself as this past life, I just feel a connection with earth and animals in a new way, and I had an Akashic reading with Venessa Rodriguez, who was on the podcast very early on. In that reading, my guides were telling me to stay on the land and to look into plant medicine and connect with the plants that that would be revealed to me, and all this feels very exciting. It feels very enlivening and resourcing.

Candice Wu 17:52

So, enough about that for now. Feel free to jump on to that episode two weeks ago, if you didn’t get a chance to experience that. It also comes with an experiential called “You are the way, that you are the way to the mystery of your life, and you are the way to everything.”

Candice Wu 18:14

So, now let’s jump into the episode for today. This topic has been on my mind for I don’t know, at least a year, but somehow, I’ve just resisted talking about it, and what made me come to it now is that many people around me are talking about and asking me questions about what I think about it, and it seems like a lot of people are sorting out who they are, and what’s happening in their dynamics with people in their intimate relationships with their clients or with friends, with colleagues, and really, that is the topic for today. It’s “Who are you in relation to others?” And is part of your role in your relationships to “help people or to care for them or to heal them, save them feel responsible for them.”

Candice Wu 19:19

In this episode, everything I’m saying, there’s nothing wrong with any way of being and as there’s nothing wrong with wherever you’re at. It’s really looking at, “Oh, that’s where I’m at.” Like, wouldn’t you rather know who you are being and who you are right now, than not know? And that knowing gives you the chance to make a clear, continue to make a clear choice in your sovereignty of who you are or to make a new choice. So, knowing and awareness gives freedom. The knowing and awareness is not meant for criticism, to shame yourself or to pressure yourself to be someone else or something else because the bottom, bottom, bottom, bottom, bottom line is that you are the energy of all consciousness, you are pure love through a body, and in this body, we’ve chosen different ways to express pure consciousness. And sometimes, we think that those ways are who we are, we identify where we feel we’re just one way, and that’s who we are.

Candice Wu 20:47

There are very specific ways of being that’s in our DNA. So, that’s a biological coding, but then there’s an energetic coding underneath that, an energetic signature of who you’ve chosen to be in this life or who you are in this life, whatever you believe in. And if you’re in line with that, you might feel very much true to yourself, and that is true to your sovereignty, true to your choice, and underneath that is the love that we all are, all possibility that we all are. Then there’s the layer, like, removed from your choice of who you are, specifically in this life that’s unique to you, and what you might express in your life.

Candice Wu 21:42

So, I want to tell you a bit about me and my development and evolution of this feeling that I was responsible for people and wanting to really heal others, to where I am today in a much freer place for myself and others, in a place that really honors myself more and honors other people in the fullness that they are. When I first came to being a therapist and healer, I had come from being a teacher working with kids, and I saw very early in my career how much wisdom children had, and how alive that wisdom was, how fresh and real it was. It wasn’t some lines that someone had fed to them. Sometimes, it was, but other times when they were really present, and I was really present with them, there were these gems of what they were feeling and thinking that would come alive.

Candice Wu 22:57

And so, after I was a teacher, I taught art for kindergarten through second grade as well as sixth through eighth grade, and I loved the middle school age. After that, I transitioned into going to grad school for clinical psychology, studying Ayurveda, studying yoga as well, and all these other indigenous healing practices at the same time, along with family constellations. And emerging from all of those learnings, there was a way in which I still felt so responsible for people’s emotions and their well being. After working with clients, sometimes, I would feel a weight in me, and then somehow, I was the one digesting the emotions that seemed to be part of what the person was telling me they were experiencing or the storyline in which these emotions would emerge from. So, it seems like people were not quite digesting their own energy, and I was taking it on and doing it for them.

Candice Wu 24:08

That was so much work, and I was also doing that in my personal relationships. I had this way of having friendships where we were there for each other through all of what we’re experiencing, and while that can be beautiful and I still have that in some ways, it was the primary way of connecting with people is to, you know, share each of our problems back and forth, and in a sense, be that co-regulating parental loving force that I needed to help me develop that in myself. But it wasn’t seeing it that way at the time, I was just continuing to rely on people in my life to give that to me, and I would give it back. And I found that that also in itself had an exhaustion level, because I was seeing the power outside of me to some degree, but not consciously.

Candice Wu 25:14

So, as I looked at this deeper, it revealed to me that I was a Shaman in a past life, and a witch. And specifically in my Shaman time, it was essential for me to be responsible for my village, for my people and tribe, and they came to me to receive healing and to receive guidance, and I would stay in my cave to restore and in that kind of worked because I was living in nature and was able to feel the earth resource and to use my shamanistic skills very well in moving energy and connecting with many dimensions to support me. I don’t really know the details of that, and it doesn’t seem that important right now, but what is really important is that, on a cellular level, I was skilled at taking in other people’s energy, like literally sucking it out of them, and then spitting it out, coughing it up, and I was the function of the healing.

Candice Wu 26:33

I realized that that was a very old way of healing for me, then it was from lifetimes ago, and that in this lifetime, it wasn’t for me anymore. I wanted to find what was me and a fresh way, an expanded way for me in this life, to grow into being of support to others, walking alongside people, instead of being bigger than them in a way. As a Shaman, that was expansive at that time it was needed, and it was purposeful and I wanted to do that. If you are doing that right now, or you find yourself having a similar way of being with these patterns, that’s okay. There’s no judgment from me, and there really isn’t judgment necessarily about that. The real question is, is that how you want to be and is that the best for your expansion and your well being in this life right now? And maybe it was before, like a year ago or yesterday, and maybe it’s not now, or maybe you were in a different way of being and now that is very interesting, enlivening and expansive.

Candice Wu 27:57

So, there’s no right way. There’s no best way that applies to all. There’s only what’s best for you, and another piece of this all is that, because I came into this life with this way of being able to take other people’s energy, and release it, digested and release it or just get rid of it, for whatever other reasons, I came into a specific family that needed that. With that, seemed to not have the functions of digesting their emotions, and supporting and loving their well being. So, early on, in my childhood, even as an infant, I had this impression and feeling sense that I was here to be responsible for other people, and we can look at this in all sorts of psychological or soul, soulful ways.

Candice Wu 28:55

We can see this from conditions of worth, through Carl Rogers’ work in psychology, where, what are the ways in which I have to act to be worthy and to be loved? And from a family constellations perspective, that’s very similar. Where do I need to stand and who do I need to be? Who, as in not myself, but who else do I need to be? What energy Do I need to hold? Or what do I need to do to belong in this family, to be seen? Where’s the energy, the direction of energy going from family members or I need to be right there, so they can see me and is that in the middle of chaos, is that in the middle of devastation? And for me, I felt so needing to be a parent to my parents so that I could be seen. There were things and patterns that had happened back in my ancestry that created that or were a part of that dynamic.

Candice Wu 30:05

So, it’s not to blame my parents, it’s started long before them, but it’s to say that I stood in the role of my parents, responsible to my parents, as a young child, and yet I could never fill that role. So, along with that came not being enough, and wanting to help my parents, so that I could ultimately be enough and be seen as enough, taking care of their emotions, taking care of their well being taking care of my siblings, from the place of needing to feel worthy enough, and that lived on for many, many, many, many years after that. And it’s not just a mental process to say, “Oh, I’m doing that. So, let me stop.” It’s in my body, it’s in the responses of my nerves system to what wasn’t safe, and what felt like was the safest I could get to, and where could I even find something for me, and there’s a deeper love there, too, loving other people loving my family members wanting everyone to belong, and making sure that they do by helping, by supporting.

Candice Wu 31:29

So, through all this, and working with all these pieces — past life, lineage, belief sets that come through from all this, I felt into a new way for me, that was to be in myself, to be fully who I am, doing what I want to do, loving myself, and therefore having a two-way kind of love that reaches out to others as well. That’s not from a place of “I’m not enough, and if I care for you, I’ll be enough or I’ll be needed or I’ll be validated.” It’s, I validate myself and I can use tools, and support and resource from around me to enhance my ability and capacity to love myself and to continue to develop it, it doesn’t just happen, suddenly, and ending there, but a continual process of that and being in the place of my adult present self that has capacity to continue to love myself and what comes up or to notice when it’s not happening, and can see others with that same capacity or a deeper capacity, the greatest capacity of all possibility, living in each person around me, no matter how they express in a human form.

Candice Wu 33:06

For me, it’s to be a compassionate witness to what they’re experiencing, to be present with them, to honor it, and not try to change it or assume that it wants to be changed or that they want to change to respect someone else’s desire, and move with them from there, checking in with what they desire and what their choices are, and ultimately, it’s seeing that they’re in the hands of the universe, which is them, which is themselves, and everything around them.

Candice Wu 33:41

In a family constellations perspective, it’s seeing that they have an entire lineage of wise and strong people where something had to go right for them to exist in this life, and to exist right now, and perhaps a whole soul belonging that they have, or entourage of guides, resource, earth, animals that may be supporting them in some way, whether they know it or not, that I can see exists for them as well. And if I’m able to hold that, I can see this person much more clearly, and if I’m also able to accept that death has its place, that pain has its place, that sadness has its place, anger has its place, and all of that is, is part of the beauty of what we get to experience, not just tolerable, but part of the beauty. Then when I see someone in pain, I don’t need to just immediately rescue them. Rescuing them is also something that can be done, and it’s not a bad thing. Sometimes, we need to be rescued. Sometimes, other people need to be rescued, but it also depends on what the deeper want, need and capacity is, and what one can do for themselves, which is much more powerful at the core than what another can do for someone else.

Candice Wu 35:31

Now, there’s, that’s also to be argued, like, there are definitely super impactful moments where somebody else has said something to me or done something for me, that made a huge difference. So, I’m not saying to not do any of that, but I am saying that I’m interested in guiding myself from my heart and also, my deeper knowing, and at any time my deeper knowing and my capacity to feel into my heart might not be the fullest it could possibly be, which is probably true, you know, this is why I’m here to expand and to continue to deepen in that. But even to the max of what I do have, at any moment, I might not be there. How much of me is here? How much of me is available? And from that place, what do I desire to do? And from the place that also holds another in their wholeness, how do I want to be and interact?

Candice Wu 36:45

If it’s a crisis situation, like something very immediate, that might be a totally different process. I’m not going to sit there and meditate on it or think about it like that, I might just act. In the aftermath, I might see who I was being in that moment and if I stand behind myself or not, and I can go for really any situation, crisis or not. Do I stand behind the choice I made? And one of my teachers, Suzi Tucker, says that she likes to make choices that allow her to continue to make more choices that she can stand behind. That’s my interpretation of what she has shared with me to be exact.

Candice Wu 37:34

So, it’s really also a question of how are we using our gifts, I do have a gift of being able to work with energy and do something with energy that people may or may not want to do something with. And as a young child that was overused, are you overusing your gifts or overworking? When you’re in an interaction with someone else, are you constantly using one way of being or one tool in yourself, one gift in yourself. I also want to talk about empathy in this episode. I love talking about empathy, I’ve had a really different relationship with empathy, and that definitely, relates to the process in which I see myself in my role.

Candice Wu 38:27

Empathy in the past, for me, has meant not just being in another’s shoes and seeing that perspective, but feeling it on a whole body and energetic level, and before I just wasn’t able to give it back. Like, I could feel into someone’s experience, and then somehow I’d be left with it, and it was my deeper pattern of taking that on and taking responsibility, but also, sometimes, it was my own experience being triggered. And me, relating to someone and having identified with them energetically, because I had that experience in some way and those feelings. So, for me, sometimes it was a double whammy, like, having to be triggered, my experiences being triggered, and looking at that and also seeing the umbrella or the holding pattern to that, which was to take on other people’s feelings and feel responsible for them, feel like I have to be bigger than them and hold that space for someone, when sometimes who I’m talking to is older than me or more developed than me, whatever, it really doesn’t matter if they’re older or younger, but in the case of my parents, it did.

Candice Wu 39:52

So, I want to talk about when empathy goes wrong, and I kind of hesitate to use those words, but maybe it’s better to say, when empathy goes too far, if we see empathy on a spectrum, where, maybe, one point of empathy is to be able to witness someone with some warm, with our capacity of presence and awareness there, and to see them in their experience and honor that they’re experiencing it and that their whole enough to handle it. If we see them in that light, versus if we see them with pity or assume that we feel something, that they feel something about it, then we can project our own feelings on them, and in return, they feel differently in relation to us.

Candice Wu 40:54

Have you noticed that where someone believes in you, versus where someone else so feels a similar doubt as you towards you? Like, “Oh, yeah, you know, not sure.” You might feel differently in your body and in your heart. So, that’s where I like to be in seeing myself as full and seeing another as full, and witnessing what’s happening and just being present, being there. It doesn’t mean I have to give advice or support or say loving words. It might just be as much as seeing what they’re experiencing. I see your pain, I see that you’re in this experience. From that place to taking on some of their emotions or when we assume as I said that someone feels a certain way, we’re projecting our feelings, but those are our feelings about that kind of experience.

Candice Wu 42:02

Have you ever had an experience where someone told you that they’re in a certain situation or something happened to them? And you say, “Oh, no, or you say, Oh, I’m so sorry.” And they say, “Oh, I am fine about it.” And sometimes, that’s denial, but sometimes that’s actually true, right? And so, we’re there’s a mismatch to how you assumed they would feel, and they actually feel. And maybe, they feel upset later, but right now, in the moment, they’re saying they feel fine. It’s a different topic to challenge them or say, oh, tab empathy and say, Oh, wait, you know, it seems like there’s something else here. That’s something else. But when we just outright assume something, and that’s not where they’re at, we get this chance to see that that was our own projection, and where we think or we can call it empathy to have offered that feeling from us. It’s not actually empathy. It’s actually being in our own experience, seeing it from our way.

Candice Wu 43:23

Also, when we feel for someone, we feel for them, instead of them feeling for themselves in a way, instead of seeing them and trusting their own ability to feel and experience. We might take on that whole energy of the feeling, and they may be discarding it are leaving it with you, maybe not, but that’s possible. That whole dynamic is a very developmental young experience for the person that might be discarding it, and that you may maybe their parental figure holding and being that digestive space. And this is an interesting dynamic, because then we also need to look at, if you’re the one being that parental figure or holding space, why are you doing it? It can be easy to say that it’s empathy, and I being caring and supporting someone, but is that serving a purpose for you that also is a pattern of yours or is something that keeps you in a cycle, or a smaller space for yourself, a dependency for yourself? Do you depend on other people to need you? Or do you pride yourself on the ability to use this tool and keep others dependent on you? Does this give you your validation or enough?

Candice Wu 45:01

Like, it has for me, in the past of varying degrees, you know, there’s a whole dynamic of empath narcissist that people label as this empath Narcissus dynamic, where someone who’s really empathic and intuitive, and sensitive attracts. They mutually attract each other. Someone who has traits of narcissism that may draw the attention towards them, and need that kind of support and dependency and can hook someone in to be that for them in almost every capacity or to varying degrees of their lives as a whole. That’s a whole different topic, and there’s so much more to that story, but we often see the empath with more empathy, I guess. We look upon that more favorably to be the empath in that situation, to be the helper in that situation, rather than the helped.

Candice Wu 46:17

We see that perhaps the empath is doing something better than the narcissist is doing because sometimes the narcissist, the person we call the narcissist, it really don’t like to use that label, we often see them as like, lashing out if the other person isn’t doing what they want or using manipulation to keep the person who is very sensitive and caring in that space for them, and yet, doesn’t the person who’s empathic and sensitive do the same thing. There’s a manipulation happening on both levels. When this dynamic is happening, of perpetrator victim as well, when it goes to that level that one is a victim of the other, both people are tied up with some energy coming from the same energy, both people are tied up with belief sets that come from the same similar place of worthiness, need or validation or dependency, somewhere we can find that there’s a place in which both are codependent. And in other cases of empathy, where empathy can go too far is where we put ourselves aside, we put others before us and prioritize their feelings and needs, and maybe sometimes even feel an urgency about that, and we put our own basic needs sometimes or lives aside.

Candice Wu 48:01

This can happen where a mother looks towards her child and says, “I need to give everything to this child, I need to be there for them. They’re not feeling well and x y&z places, and I need to be there and I need to help them.” And we look at that person’s life as a whole, and I’m not bashing mothers at all, I think being a mother is one of the most honorable and beautiful things one can do, but when a mother puts themselves aside and focuses all their energy on their child, we do need to wonder, what about their own life? And what does that say to the child, you’re worthy, but I’m not, and essentially at the bottom that says, that’s another thing, I’m not worthy of taking care of myself, and that message gets transmitted to the child inherently, implicitly in the body, in the actions, and those actions speak louder, sometimes than what’s covering it up, the helping that’s coming their way, all the energy coming their way. And it puts that child in a position of a lot of weight, like, I have to be so much better, or I have to have so much help, and I have to do this for my mother, too, because if I don’t, then she’s not going to be okay.

Candice Wu 49:35

And how different for a child to see their mother taking care of themselves, to see their mother in their fullness, giving them the space to be in their fullness or be in their struggle, whatever it is, but their mother reaching out from there, helps them to see the way because their mothers, part of showing them the way that she’s having, opens up a pathway that a child can see, “Oh, I have a way, too, and I am worthy of taking care of myself, and I can learn how to do that. I don’t always have to just give to others like my mom’s doing.” There’s a way that we implicitly and in our, in some way comes outside ways that we can be just like our parents, especially with the parts of our parents we resist or don’t want to be like, and this is where it can come out, you know, we can be just like our mom that gave us all the focus and energy and gave herself none by doing that somewhere in our lives, and then we don’t know how to take care of ourselves.

Candice Wu 50:49

So, I’ve used this mother and child example, but this really can apply to any relationship. If you are giving all of yourself to your friend, nothing to yourself, or very little and not enough, not taking care of what you really need to feel full, healthy and whole, then you’re not really able to fully be present for your friend or whoever else it is, anyway, but also on the receiving end, that support is coming from a very small capacity, small energy, and not to belittle it, but to say that there isn’t much there, if we’re giving away everything, one none to ourselves. So, that’s where empathy can go too far as well, and it can really take a toll on someone, and on the surface, it can be seen as a selfless act.

Candice Wu 51:53

We often overstate, I think selflessness, we see people giving so much to others, and we praise and we praise that, and how much do we praise people taking care of themselves? That’s very much shifting, we’re doing that so much more, at least in the fields that I’m running around, like the mental health field in wellness, there’s that’s shifting, where we’re saying, “Yes, good, you took care of yourself.” And there’s just through threads of time, where we valued being selfless, meaning doing for others and not yourself, meaning doing and being kind to the world around you at its fullest, and not needing to put yourself in that mix it as well.

Candice Wu 52:51

There’s a time and place for selflessness. If and I know that it’s also in many spiritual practices, it’s really a discussion of where someone is at the level of having transcended the ego dance, the dance of pain and being triggered like those triggers, those wounds are more healed, or at a level where they’re not in control of someone’s life, and where they’re maybe not even a thing where unconditional love is very present. That’s where some people might call these people or beings “Ascended Masters”. There’s a selflessness to that, and also, it might be necessary in times where someone is truly selfish and just very self-centered to the point that it’s hurting them. It’s not their growth edge anymore, that it hurts them and others or that the new growth would be to learn to let that love reach out to other people, not just themselves, and there’s a whole host of developmental like, young child parts to that that are probably connected.

Candice Wu 54:15

But when we force selflessness, even in that situation I’m talking about where it might be helpful to be a little more selfless, when we force it, and not heal it, and develop it organically. When we force it, there’s always some tension or resistance living in our bodies and in the system that we live in. In the community, our body will show it. We can’t skip being selfish, and developing our sense of self and caretaking for ourselves and being there for ourselves, loving ourselves developing an identity so that we can eventually release that identity and be fuller. That’s part of our developmental process as a human, as a child and in our soul, that we need to know who we are, and fill up on who we are, be seen and mirrored and take in all that love so we can know who we are, and be egocentric, like five year olds are, right? If they get to be. And if we didn’t get to be, we didn’t get that loving attunement, we might still be asking for that now in our lives, and that’s where we can give that to ourselves, and organically heal that so we can become more natural in the place of love from within, loving towards ourselves and loving outwards. Really don’t love to call it selflessness, but I did want to address that topic of selflessness.

Candice Wu 56:00

In order to ascend, when people talk about ascension, it’s about being one with the universe, the light that we are the unconditional love, that is who we are. When we ascend in human form, we must descend into the body and become embodied, live in the human form, master all the ways of being human, not just the functional things that we need to do and learn how to do in this consciousness of earth, and how earth functions right now and how people function on earth, but to come with our own creativity, and also, to master navigating all the emotions and ways of being that one can be, to have the capacity to embrace all of it and know how to work with it and use it, and feel your inner knowing.

Candice Wu 57:06

So, back to selflessness just for another moment here, when we do for others, and we take empathy to that degree, and supporting others or caretaking for others to the degree where not taking care of ourself, often that also serves to distract from what you need to do for yourself, whether that’s looking at a wound that’s really hard to look at or something that is going on for you. It serves to help you feel powerful or in control, or okay, when you can help other people when they’re not okay or see people is not okay, and continue to like, create bad or find, they can find those parts and others, and that’s how you’re relating two people, but we’re also, you might be distracting from your life path, like what you want to be spending your time with, where you’re most empowered, what you’re desiring for you and your worthiness? Do you feel like you are worthy of pleasure, enjoyment, peace, and those endeavors looking at those parts of us? If we continue to avoid those parts, we really don’t do a service to anyone. That is the deepest service, to all. It’s the deepest loving to know who you are and to move towards what you desire, to be in your pleasure, to be in your worthiness.

Candice Wu 58:54

There’s one last piece I want to mention with all this is that there’s a difference between being caring and being a caretaker as your one role or as your main role, and there’s nothing wrong with being a caretaker as your main role, like that might be your job title, that might be what you’re choosing to do. It’s really how you do it, and why you’re doing it. If you’re doing it on some unconscious level to distract from your own life, how much do you want to do that? It’s okay to do that. Sometimes, we need to distract from our lives. Sometimes, we need to feel that empowerment that we get when we can help someone else with their life, and also, recognize and have perspective that maybe our issue is not so bad, or we’re in this together. So, there’s nothing wrong with any of it. It’s the question for you if you want to explore it, only if you want to explore it, is that there are multiple parts of who you are. And are they all being looked at? Are they being offered in this life and expressed in who you are honored in yourself? Are we living our lives? Are we in our roles and our lives coming from a place of woundedness driving underneath, whether that’s conscious or unconscious?

Candice Wu 1:00:25

You may have heard of archetype wounded healer, and Sarah Buino has a whole podcast of conversations with a wounded healer, and talking about these very things, like, where are we coming from and who are we? What is a wounded healer and identifying that so we can see that happening in us if we want to see it, and make sure that that’s the choice we want to have or choosing what we want to have?

Candice Wu 1:00:58

And before we go and end this episode, I want to talk about endings and death. I touched into death just once in this conversation, but for me, all this conversation also amounts to embracing death and all sorts of emotions as part of the beauty of experience, as I mentioned, but death we’re often afraid of death or we have all these emotions that pour out from it or nothing at all. Everyone experiences that differently and sees it differently, but are you at peace with death? And if you’re not, what is your relationship with death? And how does that show up in ways in which you help others or are in relation to others?

Candice Wu 1:01:52

If I resist death or resist certain emotions, when I interact with others, then I resist to some degree, whether that’s subtle or not or overt, covert or overt. I might resist what they’re experiencing, and ultimately, that just honors them that might even dismiss what they’re experiencing or disrespect them. But when I have the capacity to honor anger, pain, death, sadness, annoyance, any emotion that is challenging, even joy, when I have the capacity to hold that in myself and see it, be with it, respect it, then I can do that for others to or I can begin to.

Candice Wu 1:02:54

Sometimes, we think that others need our help, we have a suggestion for them and we want to give it to them or give them our advice or do something for them, and we do need to keep ourselves in check because what does that say to someone else? That their situations not okay? That there are choices ain’t okay or we could do it better? My friend, Nick Werber talks a lot about this, embracing one’s fate, and in the family constellations world, we discussed that, that thought that accepting one’s fate means accepting their choices. It means accepting, not just accepting but respecting and agreeing with them of their own choice. It’s really not for us to agree, too, but respecting it.

Candice Wu 1:03:54

So, I leave you today with these questions. How are you relating to yourself? What parts of yourself are you able to be with? Who are you? Where are you coming from when you’re in a role of helping others or caretaking or coaching or being a therapist or being a friend, a daughter or a son, mother or father? How is it that you see people? Be honest, and in different situations that might be different. And how is it that you want to see people? How is it that is a deeper seeing? Where do you believe you know more than someone else whether you assert it or not? Or where you believe those thoughts that you feel, you know, more than them or why they’re where they’re at and that you can see something they can’t? There’s a fine line of intuition and asserting yourself energetically, inserting yourself and violating energetically, because you feel you know more. Were you working harder than someone else for their lives? And what parts of yourself need caretaking, saving or tending to, parts of yourself or asking for empathy? What parts of yourself want to feel worthy and in your pleasure, desire, and in the life that is 100%? You? And do you push that aside for others or do you push that aside?

Candice Wu 1:06:06

So, I think that’s enough for today. I loved this conversation and had a lot of fun. I’d love to hear your feedback, your discussions around this or what comes up in you around this, and if you disagreed with me or found something I said offensive, feel free to share that if you found something that helps you explore. I’d love to hear about that as well.

Candice Wu 1:06:34

To close today, I’ll just offer all the different podcasts that I refer to and the people that I referred to, as well as other episodes that can relate to this topic. So, I give a shout out to Venessa Rodriguez who did the Akashic reading for me recently. She is excellent and she also works with Feeding your Wild. Her episode on the body podcast is at CandiceWu.com/venessa, VENESSA, and there you can also connect up with her website, feedyourwild.com, I believe, and all of the different links that she offers.

Candice Wu 1:07:14

I shared about Suzi Tucker, my family constellations teacher, and you can find her at suzitucker.com or at CandiceWu.com/Suzi, her episode with me on the podcast, and her name is spelled SUZI. I also mentioned my friend, Nick Werber, who is a constellations facilitator. He and I love talking about death, and we did in this episode at CandiceWu.com/nick.

Candice Wu 1:07:45

I mentioned Sarah Buino in her podcast conversations with the Wounded Healer. I actually appeared on that podcast and it was so much fun. You can find that episode at CandiceWu.com/conversationswithawoundedhealer, and there you’ll be able to link to her whole podcast. Also, I mentioned the deep mystery of life episode that was two weeks ago at CandiceWu.com/deepmystery, and we spoke a lot about self-worth, worthiness. And there’s an episode that isn’t a discussion but it’s more like a download around worthiness, where it’s set to music and I just say affirmations and support the body in taking that in, and that’s at my website/worthiness.

Candice Wu 1:08:46

Also, if you want to stay up to date on my travels, on the podcast, guests experientials and topics, retreats, workshops, things that I’m offering, you can tune into my newsletter that comes out every two or three weeks. You can sign up at CandiceWu.com/embody.

Candice Wu 1:09:07

Thanks so much for joining me today. It’s really great to have you and looking forward to connecting with you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:01

It all started when I saw this note on my friend’s refrigerator that said, “Brave is…” and there was a handwritten section that said, “what you have done.”

Candice Wu 0:12

Brave is what you have done. I thought that was the sweetest thing. I don’t really know what this note was referring to. But I had a feeling it was coming from love from a person who cared about my friend and was proud of her. So after I talked with my friend about it, she referred me to Shannon Weber, who I’m so excited to have on the podcast today. She talks about risking falling in love, Empathy Adventures, agility and giving and receiving, cultivating healthy dialogue with her son, reimagining our own true script for life, and how to lead instead of save people.

Candice Wu 0:53

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 1:29

This episode is brought to you by the Sound Sleep album. It’s an album of 11 healing experientials and meditations that will guide you to feeling more grounded, restful, and embodied in your life. It’s for anyone really, even if you have good sleep, it can help you feel in your body in your daily life and be more present, connected, and enjoying your life.

Candice Wu 1:55

The healing experientials bring you deeper to a way to help your nervous system, calm and deepen, and helping you look deeper into the aspects of your sleep issues, if you have any sleep issues. You can order the album at CandiceWu.com/soundsleepd and all that money goes to helping to create more podcast episodes for all to enjoy. Thanks so much for your support and I hope you enjoy it.

Candice Wu 2:28

What fun to come to a website and for it to say to you, “You found love.” That’s what you can do if you go to Loveyou2.org, you can download all sorts of beautiful love notes that are sprinkled all upon the website, such as, Note to self, I like, your happiness matters, I love you because, you’re a wonder, good luck in your honor, or brave is — like the introduction I talked about.

Candice Wu 3:07

This is the beautiful work of Shannon Weber who just brings magic and love and sprinkles that all around the world, and this is her story of how she started the love notes, and the idea that sprung from in her relationship with her children.

Candice Wu 3:26

In this episode, she also talks about missed connections and moving from disconnection to vulnerability. How to find a different way of relating when you find yourself in enmeshed — or codependent-relationship, that’s a tongue twister.

Candice Wu 3:43

Also, she talks about noticing white fragility and saviorism in all of us, with gentleness and compassion, and how boundary creates connection in other spaces in our lives, and the icing on the cake is a love note for you later in the episode, so be sure to tune into that, as well as Shannon’s explanation of Empathy Adventures and how to bridge an empathy gap. Why it’s important and why it’s interesting to develop your empathy muscles and strengthen your ability to take those adventures into vulnerability.

Candice Wu 4:20

You can find that extra “Stamp Your Passport Empathy Adventure” explanation and discussion at CandiceWu.com/shannonweber. You can also find all of Shannon’s HIV work as well as her book, Show Up Hard, and all the lovely notes that you can download at the show notes in the link as well.

Candice Wu 4:43

So now let’s jump in and meet Shannon.

Candice Wu 4:48

Shannon, I’d love to start here today by just saying something to you that I’ve seen on your love notes that you spread all around the world. There’s no one else like you.

Shannon Weber 5:02

Oh, I have goosebumps. Wow. Thank you.

Candice Wu 5:07

Thank you so much for joining me today.

Shannon Weber 5:10

What a thrill to be here.

Candice Wu 5:14

I’d love for you to share how the love notes came about and what it is for people who don’t know about it. It was delightful for me to see one on a refrigerator door of a friend of mine and ever since that, I was just like, “Who does that? Whos notes are these?” And it’s you!

Shannon Weber 5:36

It’s me!

Shannon Weber 5:38

It’s one of my favorite stories to tell, so thank you for asking.

Shannon Weber 5:42

So, when my kids were quite young, and I would travel for work, they would miss me and as it would happen, I would also sometimes miss important things in their life, which was also devastating to me. And so I started leaving these little trinkets, we called them “Jujus” a little word from my childhood, from my mom and these little trinkets and a note, and I would leave it for my three kids, and so I’d leave one for each of them. And then they could hold the little Juju in their pocket and so they have a tangible reminder of what cannot be seen, but can only be felt.

Shannon Weber 6:25

And so I would say to them, so even if I’m gone, or I’m missing, you doing that reading, that school, or I’m missing this practice or game, you can have a piece of me in your pocket. And so it was this great ritual we would have and sometimes, you know, before something that they were really anticipating or nervous about, we would get together in a circle and they would put out all their Jujus and they pick one to take with them and the other kids, and I would each tell the kid who was nervous about something, you know how we would be there with them when they were going to go do this brave thing.

Shannon Weber 7:00

So, it was this whole ritual that we had created to stay connected and to love and support each other. And so one day, they said to me, sometimes we need a piece of you even when you’re here and I felt overwhelmed by that on some level, because I already felt so stretched thin and in so many ways spent as a single parent of three young kids. I thought: I’m already giving so much and it was so curious to me because I thought I’m showing up in the best way I know how when I’m here. How is it that you could want even more of me?

Shannon Weber 7:12

And I was curious? Well, what is that? And I thought, well, maybe it’s the being able to, you know, with the Juju that they had autonomy over, you know, the choice over when they get the juju and they could take that, fixing when they needed it. And so I thought, “Oh, I want to create something like that for them.”

Shannon Weber 8:02

So even if I’m around, but in whatever way I’m not available to them and in the way that they need, they could still access that love, which ultimately what is that, it’s like that deep knowing inside of ourselves, that is reflected back to you as a kid, by your parent. But really, it’s like accessing who you are inside. Right? So in the end, is it really about me as the mom or am I this, you know, being in relationship with them, I’m this mirror of accessing that. That love —

Candice Wu 8:32

It’s a beautiful piece.

Shannon Weber 8:33

Yeah. So I made this love note then that said, “I love you” on the top, it was an eight and a half by eleven piece of paper. I love you on the top and on the bottom, these little pull tabs that said I love you too. And I put this on the fridge —

Candice Wu 8:47

I saw that somewhere.

Shannon Weber 8:48

Yeah. So I put that on the fridge. And I said, “Okay, so you said you needed a piece of me even when you’re here. Here it is, this is your take what you need love note system. It’s right there on the fridge. I’m just very pleased with myself too, that I’ve come up with the system and then that love notes sits there and they don’t touch it and I am so inside proud of myself for this clever thing I came up with.

Candice Wu 9:14

It’s so clever.

Shannon Weber 9:15

And it was such a funny thing, because I was like, “I am so proud of myself that feels so clever that I’ve come up with this system but the kids weren’t engaging with it.”

Shannon Weber 9:26

Then one day, it was early in the morning and I had woken — I love waking up early before everyone else and I walked into the kitchen and the note surprised me. It was as if the note was for me and the “I love you”, like, what came to me is it was my grandmother’s voice and she had passed on the year before. And I was so deeply touched by the experience of thinking that my grandmother was saying, “I love you” and that I could take a tab that said, “I love you too grandma” and keep it in my pocket and so I did. I took it and I kept it. I put it in the little pocket inside my purse and then it was magical for me how every time I went in my purse to get my chapstick, to get my keys, to get my, you know, my bus card, whatever, I would find that note from my grandma even now as I remember it, I feel myself tearing up.

Shannon Weber 10:24

Because it was so meaningful to have that little reminder of love and again, as I was saying about, it wasn’t really about my love for my kids or me bringing back to them their deep connection and it’s the same thing for me with my grandma.

Shannon Weber 10:41

So then, I began to wonder what it would be like to be able to share that magical experience with other people.

Shannon Weber 10:49

And so my kids and I took that original flyer, the one that says “I love you” on the top and has the “I Love You too” tabs at the bottom, we printed them and we start hanging them up around everywhere we went, on bulletin boards and on telephone poles and, you know, sneaking them in places and leaving them for other people to find.

Candice Wu 11:13

I love that.

Shannon Weber 11:15

And then from there, people started saying, they would see the love note on our refrigerator, or they would see it where we’d hung it up around town or where we ever were visiting. And they said, “You know, I want that note too. And you should start a website.”

Shannon Weber 11:29

And so then I thought, “Oh yeah, that’d be amazing.” Because I want other people to experience this feeling I’m having on both sides. I have this profound experience hanging the sign. I have also a profound experience whenever I run back into one of my love notes, and I’m surprised by it myself.

Shannon Weber 11:47

And so I created a website and put up the love notes so people could download it and print it and hang it themselves, and then share their story if they wanted to and so from there, really grew to various kinds of love note templates and different ways for people to engage in writing love notes and creating these tangible reminders. You know, again, like the Jujus I had with my kids, but what is a reminder of what cannot be seen, but can only be felt? And what are these proofs of love that we can give and receive?

Candice Wu 12:26

It’s beautiful. It’s like a network. It’s just growing of Juju.

Shannon Weber 12:31

Yes.

Candice Wu 12:32

Stemming from our hearts, who came up with the name Juju?

Shannon Weber 12:36

Yeah. I remember it somehow, a name from my mom, referring to something from her childhood, which was the word has a meaning of, it’s a treasure to you and I have that may not be a treasure to other people. I don’t know where it came from, but that was how we refer to it. So, we would have this little trinkets, you know, that I would keep as a kid in my pocket or in these little tiny purses or, you know, hide them in little boxes, and they were treasures of things that meant something to me, but may or may not be a value to other people.

Candice Wu 13:13

That’s so sweet. I love it. And it’s such a reminder of connection.

Shannon Weber 13:19

Yes.

Candice Wu 13:20

And like our need for connection to stay connected in some way, to what gives us life and love and what gives us that sense of I know who I am.

Shannon Weber 13:32

Yes, absolutely.

Candice Wu 13:34

So you’ve created an art out of loving.

Shannon Weber 13:38

Yes. The practice of what does it mean to be in the world, to love and to be loved.

Candice Wu 13:44

Yeah.

Shannon Weber 13:44

And I’m super fascinated with both sides of that. I mean, as if there are only two sides, there’s not but I’m so fascinated by the fair, you know, the exchange and how — what’s it like to play in the different spaces of giving and receiving love in the variety of ways that we can do it, and that completely fascinates me. How can I be agile in that and in what ways can that spark agility and other people to move in that space?

Candice Wu 14:18

As you’re describing that, I was thinking, as you’re describing the the flyers you made and the little tabs that said, I love you too and this now, this giving and receiving of love, I have been spending a lot of time with horses, as you might know, and others might be hearing about on my podcast too and it’s so joyful when I bring a carrot and I give it to them and they just like, they grab it and they sometimes, they stand there and nibble on it right in front of me.

Candice Wu 14:48

Other times they just like, turn their back and go crunch on it in the corner because that’s how they want to do it. But I was just thinking about that. The way that they receive that love, that gift, that’s like, they don’t need to say thank you to me, that’s their “I love you too”.

Shannon Weber 15:07

Oh, I love that.

Candice Wu 15:08

It’s like yum, I’m enjoying this.

Shannon Weber 15:10

Yeah.

Candice Wu 15:11

And they might not give me the time of day after that.

Shannon Weber 15:14

Yeah.

Candice Wu 15:14

But that’s theirs to have.

Shannon Weber 15:16

Right.

Candice Wu 15:16

So it’s just seeing them receiving it this way and seeing how I could see that in life, you know, people are just enjoying the thing I gave or the expression that I offered and even if they’re not, whatever they’re doing with it, it’s theirs to have.

Shannon Weber 15:33

What’s beautiful about that is how you do that without an expectation. And so I think that is the commonality between these two experiences we’re talking about, which I think as you say, is this metaphor for life. Because if you are showing up with the expectation around, I’m giving the carrot and this is the scripted response that I need or want from a horse, you know there goes the magic and there goes also the opportunity for you to see that metaphor for life.

Shannon Weber 16:05

I think that same thing about love and this for me, the love notes is this tangible aspect of other ways in which we love but what is it to put up the note and to have not an expectation for what comes back. What is it for me to receive from someone else without an expectation for what follows and that is such a beautiful space to be in.

Candice Wu 16:32

It’s so clean, feel so clean, like an untangled with the expectations. I know, whenever I’ve expected out of people and horses will show me it especially they tend to go away.

Shannon Weber 16:48

Yeah.

Candice Wu 16:48

Like, when I expect something. They’re just like, “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

Shannon Weber 16:52

When it says scripted.

Candice Wu 16:53

And they walk away from me.

Shannon Weber 16:55

Yeah.

Candice Wu 16:55

Yes. Right. It’s so pressured.

Shannon Weber 16:58

It’s true.

Candice Wu 17:00

So Shannon, what would be the love note that you would write yourself today?

Shannon Weber 17:10

Well, you know, when we were meditating, I mean, we weren’t meditating, we were giving a pause for the soundcheck for 10 seconds, but I was closing my eyes and really wanting to connect with you. I actually picked up my pen and wrote this note, and it said, “When I arrived, there’s so much light.” And I don’t know that that’s necessarily the note. Yes, anyways, that’s what comes to me is that when I sat there with all that space and wanting to be open and connected with you, I was overcome with just how much the light there is.

Candice Wu 17:47

That’s beautiful.

Shannon Weber 17:48

So maybe that’s my note to myself.

Candice Wu 17:50

Beautiful. I love it. I feel so much.

Shannon Weber 17:53

And what does it take to arrive? Right?

Candice Wu 17:56

Yeah, you speak about this in your book, Show Up Hard, about connections, and the journeys and adventures, and the concept of missed connection. I would love for you to talk about that, with this topic of what does it mean to arrive?

Shannon Weber 18:16

Oh, I love that you made that connection. That’s, great.

Shannon Weber 18:22

So in the book, I am talking about this framework for how we can show up as helpers and create connection for the purposes of helping someone in crisis or creating change, but to not burn out. And so one of the ways I talk about, that people can choose to show up in the world is through a missed connection and sometimes we think of that, or I’ve seen people taking that framework and they’re having judgment around it, “Oh, it’s a missed connection, that’s a bad thing.”

Shannon Weber 18:51

The reality is that we have a missed connection or that way of engaging in so many parts of life, that’s how we go to the grocery store, we ride the bus, we’re walking down the sidewalk, we can’t have empathetic deep connection for every single moment of our life.

Shannon Weber 19:06

In fact, you know, having that boundary creates the opportunity for us to have this deep connection in other spaces but as it relates to how do we arrive and for what I wrote to myself, which is when I arrived there so much light, is that to move from a space of missed connection to being a compassionate witness, which is what I talked about in the book is about how to connect with someone else in a space that you don’t get over-involved and overwhelm, a couple of things you want to have to really deeply know yourself and know how you can peel back that layer so that you can have empathy and connection.

Shannon Weber 19:47

And you also have to have the ability to not just know yourself, believe your own worldview and your own sense of what the world looks like and step into the shoes of someone else and be able to see the world or at least try to, really try to see the world through their eyes and their world view and that’s where we get empathy, and that takes courage, and it takes energy to let go of our own worldview, and be willing to step into someone else’s worldview and see how the world looks from their eyes.

Candice Wu 20:29

Yeah, this is interesting, because I pulled this quote from your book, do you mind if I read it?

Shannon Weber 20:35

Please.

Candice Wu 20:36

“Beginning on an Empathy Adventure may feel risky. As we leave the comfort of our own worldview and narrative. To explore another’s, we risk falling in love. We risk feeling deep connection. We risk changing our own mind. We risk returning from this Empathy Adventure as a different person.”

Candice Wu 21:00

Like we risk falling in love, that one really hits me in the heart.

Shannon Weber 21:06

Yeah, tell me more.

Candice Wu 21:09

I don’t know.

Candice Wu 21:13

Because when we see something else, and we let ourselves fully in, to witness that, to open our heart to that, it feels like we can find something outside of ourselves. But when we fall in love, it feels like it’s a match inside of ourselves, somewhere and so we get to know ourselves through opening ourselves to what we think is not us.

Shannon Weber 21:42

Yes.

Candice Wu 21:42

Like, you know, that we have to, we think we’re leaving the comfort of our own worldview and then we find that actually, there’s just more of us somewhere that we were not seeing before —

Shannon Weber 21:56

So beautiful.

Candice Wu 21:57

— through someone else showing it to us.

Shannon Weber 21:59

So beautiful. Yeah, it takes such courage to do that. Because we develop these narratives about ourselves that allow us to go through our day and get our things done and do our work and cope with traumas and stress. And to be willing to shake that up, you know, or to risk that one of those, like a piece of our safety net, which is that narrative, we tell ourself about who we are, and how the world works. It takes tremendous courage, we also risk being rejected, we risk the feeling of being wrong, of kind of losing a piece of our foundation of what we believe is right by going on these Empathy Adventures.

Candice Wu 22:54

That’s true. And I think so much of us, at least in my own experience and what I see, when we’re not having empathy for someone else, there’s often something I’m trying to protect, with myself, and I might have to feel some version of pain or rejection or hurt if I take another person’s view.

Shannon Weber 23:20

Yep.

Candice Wu 23:21

And see it from their hurt or their experience. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense, we do risk the rejection, we risk pain.

Shannon Weber 23:32

I think it’s okay too to choose at times to protect ourselves.

Shannon Weber 23:38

So, if we have trauma, or particularly if we have trauma that we haven’t healed from, I don’t think that the requirement is on a daily basis that we open ourselves up unprotected. You know, that’s not necessarily the challenge, or the, you know, the goal. And so it’s okay, you know, to recognize that there are parts of ourself that will protect and to know why, that it’s a trauma, or it’s something that’s unhealed, or I have an experience with and connecting with someone in this way, and I have felt betrayed before. So I feel held back in that way now.

Shannon Weber 24:16

And so in that way, knowing, very deeply knowing our own, you know, edges of connection is so powerful and again the requirement isn’t necessarily that we change, but that we know where those places are and through that, then it can create space for us too, you know, kind of have a risk at a time when things are maybe lined up for us in a different way.

Candice Wu 24:45

I appreciate that a lot. I think so many of the messages that we get on social media, and that we can just pass along, maybe sometimes unknowingly, is you just have to push yourself and power through and go for it and not protect yourself and be bigger or whatever people say, but the protection helps us.

Shannon Weber 25:11

Absolutely.

Candice Wu 25:13

As you said, yeah, it’s about taking it one step at a time for you, for ourselves and knowing ourselves. And that’s, I appreciate that, because that sounds like the true loving, coming into play, not how we have to be in the shoulds of all of that, but how do we really love who we are, where we are?

Shannon Weber 25:40

I do think it’s important for us to know what our privileges are. And I do think that it’s a time in which those of us who have privilege, there is a requirement on us to acknowledge that privilege and to do more. And we have to know what it — I have to know what the immense privilege that I have, and also how I have to invest in my own resilience so that I can show up but I do think that it’s required, of those of us who have privilege and opportunity to take what may feel risky, but to put ourselves out there and to be willing to be wrong and to learn to make mistakes so that we can create the change that’s necessary.

Shannon Weber 26:27

And it’s been on people who’ve experienced so many traumas and structural racism to do that for so long and so I think part of what I want to say too, is that it’s important that if you have these experiences, that you are really taking care of yourself, but part of knowing ourselves is knowing what our privileges are.

Candice Wu 26:54

And it sounds like you’re saying that, well, on one hand, there might be a time for just seeing the way you’re protecting yourself and appreciating that on one hand, or allowing that and using that to be able to move forward. It’s also — it doesn’t take away from responsibility to see our privileges.

Shannon Weber 27:16

Yes, that’s beautiful.

Candice Wu 27:17

Right. The acceptance of that protection. Yeah, it doesn’t just mean we sit back and say that’s it. But there’s still a responsibility —

Shannon Weber 27:25

Yes!

Candice Wu 27:26

-to see more.

Shannon Weber 27:27

Correct.

Candice Wu 27:29

Yeah. I completely agree with that. How is that showing up in your world lately?

Shannon Weber 27:36

Well, for me, personally, it’s been doing a lot of reading and being in conversation and reckoning around any fragility, or not any, but the fragility I have around race, and in what ways does my white fragility show up, and maybe a story I told myself, six months ago or a year ago was, “Oh, that’s too scary. I have to protect myself.” And I’ve now been able to see and learn, “Oh, no, that’s my white fragility,” and what does it look like for me to be willing to look at that, and to, even though it feels risky, and I may be wrong, and I’m going to make mistakes to keep showing up, so that I can learn and I can do better.

Candice Wu 28:31

I appreciate that. For some people listening, I don’t know if they may be familiar with white fragility, the term?

Shannon Weber 28:38

Oh, yeah.

Candice Wu 28:39

Would you? Yeah, just in case, would you share a bit about what you understand with it and how you experience it?

Shannon Weber 28:47

For sure.

Shannon Weber 28:47

I’m certainly no expert in the topic and doing a lot of active learning around it right now. So I can just talk about my own experience with it.

Shannon Weber 28:57

So for me, it’s been a way in which I told myself a story of, “Oh, I’m a good person, I’m doing good work, I’m not part of active racism, or I don’t have advantages from our systems, which are so racist.”

Shannon Weber 29:13

And really then shy away from looking at how my privilege has benefited me and then when I do that, then I’m not opting in anti-racism conversations in a way that really create change. If I stay in that space, then I’m really still part of the status quo.

Shannon Weber 29:32

And so for me, it’s been coming to learn how I have my privilege, it’s like a cul de sac going round and around of protection, where I feel uncomfortable and so then I stay in my privilege, and don’t crack that open, and, you know, learn more so that I can be a part of anti-racism work and create a change. And for me, that’s white fragility. And white fragility is making sure it’s about other people and not about you, when in fact, all the white people have privilege and have a lot more to learn.

Shannon Weber 30:15

There’s a fabulous book, I would just say, called, White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, which is a great place to begin with reading and then there are so many wonderful conversations going on, and I would say wonderful and healthy conversations going on various forms of social media and blogs where people can learn more too.

Candice Wu 30:35

Yeah, I love April Harder on Instagram, especially the way — Yeah, she’s kind of like, no bullshit, which I appreciate. And on the other hand, she’s also very empathetic and non-shaming. So it’s like, we’re going to be no bullshit, but we don’t need to shame people into feeling like they’re a bad person, let’s just look at this in a way that we can look at it.

Shannon Weber 31:05

That’s beautiful. I can’t wait to look it up.

Candice Wu 31:07

Yeah. Thank you for sharing this. It’s really lovely to hear you talk about it in that way, and I, I’m Chinese American, and I know I have a lot of privileges too, and so I don’t opt out of those conversations, either with myself. And I think it can be easy for someone who’s a person of color to just say, well, they’re not part of it at all. And that I think, perpetuates a level of shaming, because it’s to say, like, that’s not me at all and I think it’s all of us, because it’s the water we breathe, to some degree, you know, in some aspect, some more than others, some way more than others, but it’s there, it’s living in us.

Candice Wu 31:56

Lately, I’ve been looking at how am I living incongruently with myself and congruently with something that is holding things in place that keep the wounding happening or holding a construct that doesn’t really, that hurts.

Shannon Weber 32:17

That’s powerful. That is very powerful.

Candice Wu 32:21

Yeah.

Candice Wu 32:23

So, I also caught on to these words, in your book, about confusing leading with saving, with saving people, and I think it fits right here.

Shannon Weber 32:34

Yes.

Candice Wu 32:36

Yeah, I would love for you to talk about that. And you wrote this beautiful checklist of how to spot if you, as a helper or as a person in the world, even that’s, you know, wanting to make a difference. How do you spot if you’re trying to save people, versus being that compassionate witness and leading?

Shannon Weber 32:57

Yeah, beautiful.

Shannon Weber 33:00

So I think for so many of us, because of the stories we tell ourselves, the experiences we’ve had growing up, we can really be scripted into believing that we are doing good, or we are creating change, as we save other people. It almost as if it gives us, you know, it’s such an active process. It’s almost like we can kind of collect this story and it’s a proof of us, doing something in the world, when in fact, it’s really not change that’s happening because the other person isn’t, you know, making the change that’s required.

Shannon Weber 33:37

And oftentimes, it’s us avoiding dealing with our own stuff, because we’re so focused on what they mean for someone else. And some of the tips I give in the book for thinking about it as if we’re working harder than the other person, like, how vested are we in this outcome of this story?

Shannon Weber 33:54

I share all of this because this is my default mode. I write about it, because it’s something I know so well, even after the book is done. How many more times have I done it since the book has come out? So many times, it’s my way of being.

Shannon Weber 34:08

And so it’s a reminder for myself of like, you know, where’s my ego in this story? You know, have I projected myself as some sort of hero in this narrative, of some problem that’s sitting there? And when real change gets created, it’s by the person who is in the crisis, who has the problem, being empowered or seeing their own power to create the change that’s right for that.

Candice Wu 34:37

Yes. I love how you said that.

Shannon Weber 34:39

Yeah, because back to that kind of magical thing we were talking about, when we were talking about love and how this agility to be in different ways of giving and receiving love and through that space, that’s where the magic is, well, that’s similar here and that the magic will come when it comes from inside the person who’s in crisis, or who needs help.

Shannon Weber 35:00

And in fact, when we are so attached to an outcome, and we have such a narrative about ourself, saving this person, I know what happens to me, these todo lists can come up automatically in my head. I know all the right answers. I know just what to do. We, in fact, —

Candice Wu 35:17

Right.

Shannon Weber 35:18

— scripted and leave out the opportunity for the magic of something more awesome than we could ever imagine happening.

Candice Wu 35:27

That’s beautiful.

Shannon Weber 35:28

I would say the downside, well not the downside, the other part, the other side of that, is that also, nothing can change and the things don’t get better, and that’s the risk. But that is the way in which we have to create that space, you know, so there’s the opportunity for that magic and the things that we could never imagine happening.

Shannon Weber 35:53

There’s also the opportunity that the person does not change at this time, and they may change another time. We certainly know this experience in our life over and over when we have people whom we love, and we’re in relationship who suffer from addiction or mental health issues, that this may not be that time that might not be their choice in that moment and yet it is still on us, to be the compassionate witness and create the space for them to have the autonomy to choose and find the way that’s best for them.

Candice Wu 36:29

Absolutely. Yeah, I think it’s really, especially where you say that if the person doesn’t feel empowered in themselves, that the magic isn’t happening in themselves, if we’re just doing it for them, or giving them the answer that we think is there. You know, just swinging back to the conversation, we’re just having previous to this, the topic of privilege and dependency, non-dependency, there’s this way that it feels like it perpetuates, having people dependent on you.

Shannon Weber 37:08

Yes, so true.

Candice Wu 37:10

Feels privilegy?

Shannon Weber 37:12

You know what you’re so right.

Candice Wu 37:14

White privilege, right?

Shannon Weber 37:16

Correct! The Savior complex.

Candice Wu 37:20

Yeah. Right, and we can taut ourselves from our ego thinking that is we’ve done something good here and I think that is a clue to say, “Wait, what have we done?”

Shannon Weber 37:33

What have you done?

Candice Wu 37:34

What have we done? Not in a critic like, not in a shaming way, but like, “What am I doing here?”

Shannon Weber 37:40

It goes back to the thing you were mentioning right now about where’s this incongruent or congruent. And yeah, so it’s not a thing to be shamed about. But is this congruent with what I believe to be the higher path or the path that’s going to create this deeper change in the world? And so many times I think it’s no. It’s our default way of showing up. It’s the way that has gotten us through to this point.

Candice Wu 38:07

I know this place very well too, like, this is definitely my default way. And I even remember, in college, my friends, and I would be like, we’re going to save the world, because we’ve done this, like, cool project that did help people.

Shannon Weber 38:20

Yeah.

Candice Wu 38:23

But yeah, it was like — Yeah, maybe wonder, is this in our nature to want to save what is that about, and as I go deeper with myself with that, it’s about proving myself that I’m enough and that’s all about me, not about someone who has their own autonomy and just wants someone to love them by seeing them as they are with our own power.

Shannon Weber 38:50

You know, I think it’s also about having meaning in life, I would say that, I agree with you. Because I think it’s the same thing for me, there’s a huge part of my ego, always, and I think it’s important to acknowledge that and shake hands with the ego and, you know, find a way to walk together. But I also think that it’s we want, and crave meaning in life, and maybe the way that we think that there’s meaning is by some superhero, or -shero story, that’s from some movie narrative, or now, it wouldn’t even be a movie, you know, it only be a one minute video that somebody saw online.

Shannon Weber 38:51

True.

Shannon Weber 39:28

But in fact, you know, creating, or having meaning in life and creating meaning out of our life —

Candice Wu 39:35

Right.

Shannon Weber 39:35

— is a much deeper and quieter process and it may, in fact, not be seen in that same way or acknowledged in that same way, that real meaning and that real change in the world is that quiet and everyday work that it’s not as glittery and fancy as our egos might want to believe.

Candice Wu 40:01

I love that I really connect with that, the quieter and deeper process, and I’m wondering how that, how that shows up for you?

Shannon Weber 40:14

Yeah, I think about that, in my life right now as it relates to work that I want to do in the world, and also, as it relates to parenting, my kids who are in their late teens now. And when I think in these settings about what is the, you know, when I wake up in the morning, and what is that impact that I want to have, it what was required to make that impact is this deeper work of wrestling one with my ego and getting straight with that, and then figuring out that kind of background work that infrastructure, scaffoldings, that needs to be there for whether it’s my kids or the work that I want to do in the world. And it’s not the glittery, or the frosting on the cake, you know, the final touches that we kind of might dream about. But it’s creating the infrastructure and scaffolding for bigger, bigger work.

Candice Wu 41:19

And that’s that daily, like one brick at a time feel. It sounds like.

Shannon Weber 41:24

Yes, and not getting distracted, I think, for me by the things that can sometimes feel more fun or look more exciting or be more Instagram-worthy. But it’s like — and at the end of the day is that the one step forward or two steps forward towards that bigger and deeper change.

Candice Wu 41:43

Beautiful. It’s like one pebble at a time, one piece at a time. So what topics are up in the air for you lately? What’s alive?

Shannon Weber 42:02

You know, something that keeps coming up and I would love to talk about with you is, in the book, we talked briefly about the framework, and we talked about missed connection and compassionate witness, and then I don’t know that we named this third framework that we’ve referenced at many times, which is this enmesh framework or this martyr framework.

Shannon Weber 42:21

So we’ve talked about in our conversation, how that can be both of our default methods and it’s many folks for a variety of reasons. But something that’s up for me right now, which is, I’ve been asked many times by folks, can you move from an enmesh relationship to a compassionate witness relationship? And of course, I think the answer to almost anything in life is yes. But then it’s probably a matter of how.

Candice Wu 42:47

Yeah.

Shannon Weber 42:47

And so I’ve had conversations with people about how complicated that can be or how tricky that can be to move from an enmesh or an overinvolved relationship to one that’s balanced, or the compassionate witness in which we’ve removed the kind of power, the holding of what’s happening from ourselves and put it in the space for the, to either be shared or where the person who’s in crisis has got ownership of their whole story.

Shannon Weber 43:19

And I’ve reflected that these kinds of things will blow up one way or another. So it certainly behooves us to, in advance, try to avoid being in these sorts of situations and relationships. But for some of us were in these relationships, and some of them have gone on 10 years, 20 years, or even months into something that feels like a deep pattern, and it can feel really hard to back out of.

Candice Wu 43:47

Yeah.

Shannon Weber 43:48

And so I’d love to chat about that with you. If you have thoughts from your healing work, or you have experiences from meditating with the horses, and, you know, where are these kind of tips for once we’ve acknowledged that we are overinvolved, we’re in an unhealthy space, and it’s not necessarily something we’re just going to cut off.

Candice Wu 44:10

Right.

Shannon Weber 44:11

Because maybe it’s in a work scenario or a family scenario where it’s not like you can just move away from it. And so are the other ways to move from that into a healthier space.

Candice Wu 44:22

Well, Shannon, this is like the story of my life.

Shannon Weber 44:26

Oh, I did, I didn’t mean it to be that.

Candice Wu 44:29

That’s okay. So, I guess, I’ve never been asked that question from this space, so it’s great.

Candice Wu 44:41

I would say that as a default and when I say that, meaning just like, the imprint of my young life, and maybe past lives, or my ancestral role that I have taken up coming into this life has been of being responsible, where it’s not mine to be responsible for and that was a survival, and it does something, it does do something in the system, in the soul of the system of my family. I do believe that my doing so has done something. But I’ll go back to something you said in your book that staying enmeshed has a price.

Shannon Weber 45:29

Yeah.

Candice Wu 45:30

And learning or shifting that also has a price, is what you said. It really resonated with that.

Shannon Weber 45:38

Yeah.

Candice Wu 45:38

Because when I did start to see that this was exhausting for me and it was a hard seeing, you know, my body was showing me this is more in my 20s, but my body was like, you can’t keep doing this with your family. You can’t keep doing this with the world. You’re just taking on everyone’s problems.

Shannon Weber 46:02

Yeah.

Candice Wu 46:02

I realized that was a part, a very big part of my journey in healing my own body and heart and soul. And it didn’t have to do with healing everyone else anymore. It was where I thought that was the case. It was more about me at the point at which I begin.

Candice Wu 46:21

So, I’ve been in numerous relationships where I have become enmeshed with someone, found my connection with them through helping them and becoming their person, their go-to person or taking on the role of a mother or, and that sometimes was beautiful and lovely. And other times it was awful, because I also got the bad end of the stick. So to say, the rougher end of that, like if things didn’t go right —

Shannon Weber 46:55

Yeah.

Candice Wu 46:55

— I had to take the heat for that, too. So, yeah, and I would say that all of those different relationships that I’m referring to that were family, friendships, and also intimate partners, they all had different outcomes as I start to realize, and different ways for me to navigate it as I realized that this was the pattern that was going on with me and in this relationship. So yeah, some of the price that I paid was the relationship did end —

Shannon Weber 47:29

Yeah.

Candice Wu 47:29

— at some point, and —

Shannon Weber 47:31

Me, too.

Candice Wu 47:31

Yeah. And sometimes it was very successful in shifting that this is no longer going to be the case. But what it required was a lot of loving and brutally honest communication and boundaries that I didn’t have. I didn’t know how to put boundaries up at all. I didn’t allow myself to. I didn’t think they were. I didn’t think I was allowed to have boundaries. So giving myself that permission was a big step.

Shannon Weber 48:02

And even the ability to have the brutally honest conversation, I think that’s so challenging, when we’re in these scenarios, sometimes we aren’t even brutally honest with ourself about how off the relationship is. You know, another clue I’d gotten recently is if I’m explaining a relationship to someone who’s new in my life, and I have to explain how special are all the excuses, when ultimately the mirror back is for me like, oh, because it’s so unhealthy.

Shannon Weber 48:31

The story I’m explaining is actually so unhealthy and off. I’m having to really go and explain all the ins and outs, which have you been close to me that you already understand all the ins and outs of the wackiness. So, I think that this point about the brutally honest conversation, which starts with ourself, but then like, awesome that you were able to say that with another person like that, in and of itself is super powerful.

Candice Wu 48:59

Yeah, and I just think about what that required because it wasn’t easy. But it also required that —

Shannon Weber 49:08

So many guts.

Candice Wu 49:09

Yeah, and that daily, deep doing, and being with yourself over time and being with that person over time, the one I’m referring to is more of a romantic connection, but we had built a lot of trust in the relationship to be honest with each other and to tolerate the other’s brutally honest expressions.

Shannon Weber 49:33

Yeah.

Candice Wu 49:33

What I mean is saying truths that are hard to hear, but we found a way to say it lovingly, that we could tolerate it, that we could really look at.

Shannon Weber 49:44

That’s so beautiful.

Candice Wu 49:46

Yeah.

Shannon Weber 49:47

So beautiful.

Shannon Weber 49:50

And sometimes that’s available for folks and sometimes it’s not to, if it’s maybe in a work scenario, or a community scenario, depending on where the people’s privileges and you know, power differentials lie that may not always be available for folks. But I think being able to have this space where we can talk about it brutally honest, at least with someone, whether that’s a friend, or a therapist, or some other person so that it has sees the light of day.

Candice Wu 50:22

I love that, seeing the light of — so it sees the light of day, that’s beautiful. And sometimes just to add to what you’re saying, sometimes the other person or other people aren’t interested in hearing that truth at all, and that has been very hard for me.

Shannon Weber 50:37

Such a great point. Because for some folks, that way of engagement has served them and for you to shift it up, you’re not going to work for them. So you’re so right, it’s may not always be available.

Candice Wu 50:53

I think with my way of surviving when I was younger, I had to be very persistent. Well, people generally think persistence is a really good thing, I think it’s a great thing to be able to be persistent. But there’s always a balance to every kind of trait and there’s always good in a sense of good and a bad side or when it becomes out of balance. And when it is in balance with my persistence, when I experienced someone who was unwilling to go there, my persistence became really unhealthy and it was better to walk away in those situations or let it have space or something and that was hard for me. So that’s another thing I had to learn. Yeah, but how, what is your experience? And what are the thoughts that you have around it?

Shannon Weber 51:45

Yeah, something that I’m just paying so much attention to in my life right now and talking about it with as many folks as I can, so I can learn more, so it feels like it’s such an area of exploration for me. But I would say, one thing I got coached by someone to do in a scenario where I — so one of the things I’ve realized about myself is that it might take me 24 or 36 hours to really kind of process and integrate that something is off and I used to judge myself about that. And now I recognize that that’s part of who I am and there are so many beautiful aspects about myself that I’m not quick to, I don’t know the word, “judges” is right, but I’m not quick to decide about something because that’s a beautiful possibility. But where I’m struggling with it is like I maybe needed to have said something or set a boundary and I didn’t. And it will take me these 24 or 36 hours to really integrate and then articulate what’s up for me.

Shannon Weber 52:52

But I’ve also recognized that I can often feel in my body when it’s happening, that something’s off. But I won’t have all the pieces together to say something and so I was coached by someone with this great line, which I’ve been trying to use when I recognize in my body that something’s off. And what she said to me was, “Would it be possible for you to say something has offered me right now, I can’t quite name what it is. But I want to just say that, and I’ll circle back to it when I know what it is.”

Shannon Weber 53:22

And it’s such a great thing, because it just flags for me and I can do that in a way, it can have a neutral energy, or a, just a, hey, what’s up energy, but it also, it’s a way for me to acknowledge that my body has that feeling, that something’s off. So I’m not necessarily sweeping it under the rug, and then waiting till later, you know, to process.

Shannon Weber 53:43

But it also might — I’ve seen it happen where other people in the setting might say, “Oh, yeah, something’s off for me too. Is it this or that.”

Shannon Weber 53:52

And so in some ways, it’s created a healthier dialogue than —

Candice Wu 53:57

Yeah.

Shannon Weber 53:58

— or for me to get more inputs and information about what my body has said, “Hey, something’s up.” But I again, can’t quite articulate it at the moment. So that’s great, I’d like area place I’m practicing in.

Candice Wu 54:11

It’s so respectful of you and your process, and your body and where you’re at. I love it and I love that it opens up a conversation at times with others.

Shannon Weber 54:21

Yes. So that’s, yes, it’s good. And who knows what will come from that for me. Like, I don’t know that I’ll necessarily be able to integrate and then articulate things. Immediately. I’m not sure that’s the goal. Right? The goal is for me to keep showing up as my best self and the framework of my book, being a compassionate witness is in as many, you know, areas and opportunities as I can and so that may be my path forward to that.

Candice Wu 54:53

It’s beautiful. I mean, there’s no good reason to pressure yourself to, I don’t know, to be able to respond quicker.

Shannon Weber 55:04

Yeah.

Candice Wu 55:04

So trivial, you know?

Shannon Weber 55:07

I know that, but I do sometimes feel like, “Oh, I want to be that very witty and articulate and very self-knowing person that knows.”

Candice Wu 55:15

Yeah.

Shannon Weber 55:15

But really, it takes a run or a walk and a sleep, and, you know, some meditation, this is just the way my inner world works.

Candice Wu 55:27

I think I work in that way, especially when it touches something that might have been hard for me, in the past or traumatic, like it touches on some piece of that. But also, like, just with what you’re saying, like yeah, I would love to be this witty, quick on my feet person and I think I am sometimes.

Candice Wu 55:48

I’m watching Designated Survivor on Netflix and so many TV shows, or movies like people, it’s a script, people are so witty in an instant and it’s so exciting. But that’s just not the reality of human beings, in most cases.

Candice Wu 56:09

We need time to think about it. We don’t always say the funniest, clever thing, or the right thing and we need to be able to rewind and fast forward or say let’s do this again, or —

Shannon Weber 56:24

Truth. Yeah.

Candice Wu 56:25

Yeah. And what was the other thing you wanted to share?

Shannon Weber 56:29

Oh, yeah. So I was thinking of another way in which this experience is showing up for me which I am really enjoying is my middle child is 19 and he and I, so let me rewind by saying, we had talked about how these relationships will often end, they’ll necessarily end or they’ll be, I think, also energy that stays with it in a way that it’s not necessarily attractive for us, or that we, you know, we want to lean into.

Shannon Weber 57:03

And so I also challenge myself, in what ways when I recognize that these sorts of behaviors on my set are starting earlier, can I say something or speak about it sooner with the goal of that I can shift that way of engaging earlier on and keep it towards the healthier side? So that it won’t necessarily blow up or, you know, have this something of consequence that kind of lingers.

Shannon Weber 57:33

And so I’m really loving this experience with my middle child who’s 19 and he is graduate from high school, and he’s living at home and working. And so we’re in this really interesting space of reimagining our relationship. And so, I love that we are able to have conversations about it, and what’s hard and was easy for us and I just noticed this week that I started to get over-involved about something and I even reflected to myself, “Oh, I feel like it’s high school again. And I’m doing this.” And I had to think to myself, I mean, “Whose problem is that?”

Shannon Weber 58:15

It would be easy for me to get upset and be like, “Well, that’s his problem.” But I had to reflect I’m behaving in this way that reminds me if you know him at a younger age, and so I actually chatted with him and we have this beautiful practice now of doing these check and he calls them check-ins. And so we check in with each other to chat about how our relationship is going and so we have the check-in, and I said “I noticed I’m doing this”, and he says, “I noticed that about you too, mom, and that is not the best life for you.”

Shannon Weber 58:48

You know, and I was like, it is not the best life for me. And he was like, so but then he was, he, you know, he could ask, is he doing something that’s causing me to do that? No, it was me defaulting to this.

Shannon Weber 59:00

I was like, this is the story I’m telling myself about what you’re doing right now and so this is how I choose to respond, and he’s saying, well, this is actually what’s happening. And, you know, I want more of that in my life, you know, not just with him, which I’m just so grateful to know what I know and for him to be who he is in the world, so we can have the conversation and I hope to continue on a path that remains healthy and beautiful. But I want more of that in different relationships in my life, these sort of check-in and being able to say, “I noticed this about myself” and the other person saying what they notice then.

Shannon Weber 59:38

It doesn’t even take that long, to be honest. It takes trust, it takes vulnerability, right? But it’s not even a huge amount of time to be able to both end up kind of balancing things and being your better self.

Candice Wu 59:55

That is incredible, Shannon. I feel so, my heart just feels so wide open and like warm knowing that you and your son have this conversation and it’s a regular conversation and you can be so honest with each other. It truly shows how much trust you have built.

Candice Wu 1:00:14

And that he can even say, “Is there something I’m doing that’s contributing to that?” Wow!

Shannon Weber 1:00:23

Yeah, it’s a good space.

Candice Wu 1:00:25

It’s beautiful and I like this idea of reimagining a relationship, and it sounds like you’re saying, well, what’s going well, and what’s a challenge here or what’s not going so well or here’s what I’m noticing about each of us and how do we want it to be. Is that right?

Shannon Weber 1:00:47

It is. What’s interesting as you’re saying that, I wanted to tell you, “Yes, because we don’t really have a script for who we’re supposed to be right now.” Because where’s the script for, you’re 19 and you’re living at home, and figuring out what’s next, and so because there’s no script, we acknowledge that to each other. We’re like, we’re unplugging from this story about this path and that path and now because we don’t have a script, we’re going to talk about it and figure it out. But as you were reflecting this, I was gonna say, when do we ever have a script for what it’s supposed to be?

Shannon Weber 1:01:23

You know, we take these scripts that are given to us from society, from stories, we tell ourselves, from the movies, from whatever, and then we have that script dictate these various relationships and in reality, I am now recognizing through our conversation, like this beautiful opportunity that he and I are having is like, really, that’s what all of life ought to be. Because what script is there?

Candice Wu 1:01:49

Yeah, truly. Well, my mind just went to, well, there’s like, just in the work that I do with Family Constellations and the lineage, there is an undertow of the script.

Shannon Weber 1:02:04

Okay, good point. Excellent point.

Candice Wu 1:02:07

And then, as you said, like, there are these scripts that we take on from the world around us.

Shannon Weber 1:02:13

Yeah, it’s true.

Candice Wu 1:02:14

Like, we should be X, Y, and Z. But I think you’re bringing up the most beautiful, magical part of living is to ask what scripts really do we want to be following? Like, we can design this with our awareness, with our loving each other.

Shannon Weber 1:02:33

It goes to your being incongruent and where your incongruent reflection, right, like really having the courage and the awareness to look at that, those scripts or stories or paths. Right?

Candice Wu 1:02:49

Right.

Candice Wu 1:02:50

Wow. Well, I’ve really enjoyed this conversation, Shannon.

Shannon Weber 1:02:53

Likewise.

Candice Wu 1:02:54

I want to just, yeah, I want to just ask you one more question, if you would be willing, if you’d be willing to share with our listeners today, one of your love notes that you feel our listeners could take in today, just from your intuition.

Shannon Weber 1:03:21

Yes, the one I want to share is this, “You are enough.”

Shannon Weber 1:03:30

And if I could, I would come into your house and I would take a Sharpie and I would write this on your bedroom wall, and I’d write it on the mirror in your bathroom, and I would write it on your kitchen wall, and I’d write it by your back door, and I would put it on the sun visor in your car, and I’d write it on the back of your hand so that everywhere you turn around, there was this note that was telling you that you are enough.

Candice Wu 1:03:53

I love it! That is so great. I definitely tell that to myself at times when I needed and could use the reminder at times when I don’t remember.

Candice Wu 1:04:09

And as you’re saying this, it made me think of maybe, think of like, Habitat for Humanity kind of projects and like, with what you’re doing with just leaving notes in public spaces. It made me think of, yeah, if you could go into people’s homes, like, if people invited you into their homes to love, I don’t know, what would you call it? To love it up.

Shannon Weber 1:04:39

I have lots of Sharpies. Invite me over anytime. I’m so happy to write on your wall.

Candice Wu 1:04:47

My five-year-old self would have been like, inviting you over right away. Well, my dad would probably be like, “What have you done?”

Shannon Weber 1:04:55

Yes.

Candice Wu 1:04:58

Spreading out on the walls.

Shannon Weber 1:04:59

That’s all I want to do, is write on the walls.

Candice Wu 1:05:02

Thank you so much, Shannon. Is there anything else you want to share today before we go?

Shannon Weber 1:05:09

Well, maybe I will just share that, if folks want to go to the love note website, which is Loveyou2.org, there are all these free love note templates you can download in six languages.

Candice Wu 1:05:25

Oh cool.

Shannon Weber 1:05:26

And lots of different ideas for how you can print the love notes and share them in the world. And so, I think it’s just so fun and people telling me amazing stories about what happens when they start very freely writing love notes.

Candice Wu 1:05:42

I love that. Do you have Chinese on there?

Shannon Weber 1:05:44

There’s Mandarin. Yes.

Candice Wu 1:05:47

There’s mandarin?

Shannon Weber 1:05:48

Yes.

Candice Wu 1:05:49

There’s — well in Chinese, all the writing is generally the same, even though the spoken is different.

Shannon Weber 1:05:56

Got it.

Candice Wu 1:05:57

So, yeah. Oh, that’s cool. I love that. And your book is that ShowUpHard.com

Shannon Weber 1:06:05

Correct. And there’s at ShowUpHard.com website, all the love notes that I wrote in the Show Up Hard book are available to download for free, as are the worksheets and then there’s also a free 30-day e-course people can sign up for where they’ll get a little email every day for 30 days with a little prompt and a little message or a love note. I think that’s kind of fun, too.

Candice Wu 1:06:27

That’s beautiful and I love that your book is designed like a workbook. There are these sections of questions and reflection. It’s great.

Shannon Weber 1:06:38

Thank you.

Candice Wu 1:06:39

Yeah, and do you want to mention your HIV work at all?

Shannon Weber 1:06:41

Sure. Also, too, I really love my work, I feel lucky to be doing it and I found it in direct a website called pleaseprepme.org and practice the HIV prevention pill and we help people get access to the HIV prevention pill. We have a directory and resources and then we do online chat and help people figure out how to get the pill and the associated services paid for.

Candice Wu 1:07:13

Beautiful and I hopped on there and I love how it’s speaking to all different audiences, whether you’re a man, you’re a woman, you’re trans, or I think you had some other populations on there that you were speaking to.

Shannon Weber 1:07:26

Yeah, we’re very keen on youth as well. It’s a really diverse and inclusive space. Yes.

Candice Wu 1:07:35

Beautiful. Thank you so much for doing the work you’re doing there and the love notes, just sprinkling your heart across the world and spreading that joy and love. So beautiful and I’m so touched to have you here today and I learned a lot and I appreciate you. Thank you.

Shannon Weber 1:07:57

Likewise, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate our connection and I have enjoyed your newsletters and podcasts and learning about you and your teachers and I’m really loving learning about horses from you.

Candice Wu 1:08:10

Oh, thank you!

Candice Wu 1:08:15

What I really loved about our conversation and connecting with Shannon is how real she is and how authentic she shows up as, and it feels like I can really feel her presence. It’s not like an extra layer that I have to cut through to feel a connection with her. It was so easy.

Candice Wu 1:08:33

I hope you felt that connection too and that informs or inspires you to find your own way to connect with others, your own authenticity, your own ability to empathize with yourself and also with others through showing up the way that you are, with who you are and with compassion.

Candice Wu 1:08:54

Thanks so much, Shannon for showing up hard and showing up on the podcast today. It was so much fun and I learned so much and was very opening for the love in my heart.

Candice Wu 1:09:08

And just a quick note, be sure to check out her discussion about Empathy Adventures coming out later this week or you can find it at https://osb.oyw.mybluehost.me/shannonweber.

Candice Wu 1:09:18

I hope you all find love in your life today, in every day, and also, perhaps sprinkle some of those love notes around your space or in your community spaces, maybe sneak around like Shannon and her kids do and just have an adventure with it and see how people react.

Candice Wu 1:09:38

Lately, I’ve seen a lot of pictures and posts on the US Mexican border and how our artists have been creating playful artwork and installations that people can interact with, such as seesaws that connect on both sides and where you can see the other people on the other side playing with you and also I saw a big painting. It seemed like a big painting, installation of a child’s face looking over into the Mexico side from the US side. It was really a sweet image and to me, those seem like playful ways to show our love and connection just like these love notes do. So I feel like this is one way we can bridge connection and make it safer for people to connect and make people feel or invite people to feel the love that we want to bring to the world.

Candice Wu 1:10:47

Lastly, be sure to check out Shannon’s book at Showuphard.com if you are interested in the discussion about being a helper and how to support yourself with self-care boundaries, going on Empathy, Adventures, etc. And that can really help anybody who feels that they’re in a position of helping another.

Candice Wu 1:11:09

Thank you so much for listening in today. It’s great to have you here. Before you go I invite you to sign up for the bi-monthly newsletter that goes out with updates on experientials, podcasts, retreats, workshops, and self-love notes. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/embody.

Candice Wu 1:11:31

And before we go, I want to make a couple of shout outs today to Nick Werber who offered the music to the beginning and the end of the podcast that I still use today. Thank you so much, Nick, I love it. And also to Chris Spiegl, who does the editing and behind the scenes production of the Embody Podcast, as well as the website.

Candice Wu 1:11:54

Chris does an amazing job with the sound quality and editing the pieces so that they’re easy to listen to and completes it all on the podcast as well as communicates with all my guests and helps us out with any tech issues that any one of us may have. So I want to thank him and appreciate all the work he does for the podcast. Thank you, Chris.

Candice Wu 1:12:20

So with that, I will leave you all today with the inspiration to risk falling in love. See you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Introduction

Candice Wu 0:00

You are listening to Shannon Weber’s discussion around bridging an empathy gap, stamping your passport with an empathy adventure, and learning how empathy adventures can guide us into expanding our capacity for connection and creating change.

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.

You can find the full episode on Shannon’s story on how she created her love notes, as well as our discussions around vulnerability and intimacy, noticing missed connections, reimagining our script for life, how to lead instead of safe people, and how boundaries create connection in other spaces at CandiceWu.com/shannonweber. And right now, I will leave you in the loving hands and heart of Shannon Weber.

Opening By Shannon

Shannon Weber 1:28

When I was a college student, I was working in Switzerland, one summer, as part of a work-study exchange, and on the weekends when we had time off, and we’d gotten paid, we would go on adventures. I loved collecting stamps in my passport at the time, and I would go out of my way sometimes to go through a country or try to see if I can make my way through even a small country if even just had the stamp and my passport. It’s such a freeing experience, because regardless of how I experienced that country or the weekend for that period of time, if I like the food, if the hostel was comfortable or not, if the places I’d wanted to visit were open or not, I still had the stamp in my passport.

So, about 10 years ago, when I was at a transformative time in my adult life, I challenged myself again, with having these various adventures with the only goal of having the adventure and getting the metaphorical stamp and my passport, not being attached to the outcome of what would happen freed me to try new things, to experience the world and people and adventures, and different ways than I might have, otherwise. And at the end of the experience, if I ultimately decided it wasn’t for me or if it was particularly challenging in some way, I could say to myself, and I often talked about this with my best friend, “Well, I have the stamp in my passport.”

A Practice of Empathy

So, I bring this to you as a practice now when we think about empathy and how we might grow our empathy muscle, so, we know that 10% of our empathetic responses, and innate response which means that the rest of it can be learned or it can be built, it can be developed. And so, this practice of this Empathy Adventure Passport, which I introduced in my book, Show Up Hard, and this resource that I’m going to reference the Empathy Adventure Passport is available for free, for download at showuphard.com. This is a practice that can be really useful for people who are wanting to experience more empathy in their life, and for people who have, perhaps, a higher innate response to being empathetic. The Empathy Adventure Passport can be useful and helping us to understand our selves on our empathy adventures so that we can either more quickly access empathy or so that we can be more expansive in whom we feel empathy for.

You know, one of the things I’ve learned about myself is that I have a story, I tell myself that I’m a highly empathetic person, but there’s also truth that I have biases and assumptions, and these stories are stereotypes and narratives can be getting in the way of me being empathetic for some people. So, it’s true, I’m highly empathetic in some situations and some times, but I still like to challenge myself with these empathy adventure experiences, to be more expansive in my ability to access empathy for a variety of people.

Steps of the Empathy Adventure Passport

So, I want to just walk through the Empathy Adventure Passport and talk about the different steps, and I think it’s so valuable, by the way, to print this out and actually write it because there’s something valuable in the process of noticing of slowing down to notice, but also, because we’re writing helps us to integrate things. And so, for those of us who are on a quest to more deeply and expansively experience, empathy, this practice of writing about it can be really, really helpful in helping develop that muscle or skill.

So, as part of the Empathy Adventure Passport, we define what the adventure is, and sometimes these adventures are happening to us, so, it might be a crisis or a situation that comes up at work or in our community or in our family, but they also might be adventures that we seek out. So, if I notice an edge to myself, that I might task myself with finding an adventure, which helps me to tap into that edge, and to explore whether or not I can find a new edge. So, why is the adventure and then we reflect on what’s the internal narrative? So, with that story I tell myself about this adventure, that can be both who I am and the story or what I’m expecting about the other person or this scenario, but being able to identify our internal narrative is super helpful, because it can help us one acknowledge it and give it a space so it can sit there, but then it gives opportunity for there to be space for something else to be true.

We can also write down our biases, and assumptions, you know, what are we taking from our own worldview into this experience, which might impact the adventure? There’s a place then to write about what did you notice about your body? And I’m so keen on this aspect of noticing our body in these various experiences, because our body always gives us clues as to what’s going on, and so, the more that we can learn to tap in to the clues that our body gives us, then the quicker and sometimes more easily, we can navigate or traverse these challenging and or expansive experiences.

And then there’s the opportunity to write what’s the takeaway? So, what did you learn about yourself? Or, you know, what’s the summary of this empathy adventure? And it may be, “Hey, that thing is not for me,” and that’s, you know, you got your stamp on your passport, but it may be that we changed our mind, that we fell in love, that we came away with a different worldview or a new perspective, and that’s the beauty of going on these empathy adventures is that we ourselves might be changed.

And then finally, how did I return to myself? Because while we go on these adventures, to see the world through someone else’s eyes, and to experience the world in a new way, and this is part of how we create change in the world. We need to let ourselves know at the onset that we will come back to ourselves. So, we may come back change, and that’s the beauty of writing about it is that we can then integrate it and it can become part of who we are and how we show up in the world next time, and that can be part of the more tangible aspect of the passport stamp from that experience, so to speak, but I think it’s also helpful for these riskier and more challenging empathy adventures if we let ourselves know at the onset, I’m going to return back. It provides a sense of safety and stability that we can come back to that core of who we are, and give space to process it or to integrate it.

Wishing You…

So, I wish you all the best in having magical and expansive and wondrous empathy adventures. I have the Empathy Adventure Passport is helpful to you in navigating these experiences, and I’d be so thrilled to hear from you about how the Empathy Adventure Passport serves you and becoming more expansive with your empathy.

Closing

Candice Wu 8:38

Thank you so much for listening in today, to the discussion around empathy adventures. I hope to see you next time on the Embody Podcast.

You can check out other experientials, podcast guests as well as healing topics and self-love topics at CandiceWu.com/podcast.

See you next time.

Candice Wu 0:00

This episode is with special guest Joffre McClung, who is the author of two self-love and healing books.

Candice Wu 0:06

In this episode, we talked about our inner orphans, how to use our emotions as a navigational system to connect with our higher self to heal and to love ourselves. What is self-love and how to play?

Candice Wu 0:22

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

Candice Wu 0:36

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

Candice Wu 1:01

Welcome back, everyone. It’s great to have you today and to welcome the special guest Joffre McClung.

Candice Wu 1:07

She used to be an actress, and she is the author of a couple of healing self-love books. One is called, The Heart of the Matter. And the other is called How Learning to Say Goodbye Taught Me How to Live.

Candice Wu 1:19

It was really fun to talk to her in this episode, where she talks about her experiences with people in her life that have had cancer, and how people in her life have mirrored her need for self-love, or showed her different parts of herself that she needed to learn in herself or to heal up in herself.

Candice Wu 1:39

She began her career as a theater actress and producer, having spent most of her adult life in New York City, where she acted and produced several Off-Broadway productions. And she was an avid student of spiritual literature and techniques since the early 80s. Because, she wanted to learn and grow herself.

Candice Wu 1:58

She taught herself filmmaking and formed, Sweet Moon Pictures production company in the 1990s. And then wrote, produced, and directed two independent films with spiritual themes and overtones. Those are called, Out of the Blue and Best Wishes.

Candice Wu 2:13

Before moving back to Texas to care for her dying mother, she worked as a senior producer and director for a media broadcast production company in New York City for over 15 years.

Candice Wu 2:23

You’ll hear in this episode about how her life took many different turns. And she landed here in her passion through writing books, talks, and creating videos to support people in loving themselves and taking the journey to empower themselves. So without further ado, here is Joffre.

Candice Wu 2:46

Okay, welcome, Joffre.

Joffre McClung 2:48

Hey!

Candice Wu 2:49

Hey, it’s so good to have you.

Joffre McClung 2:51

It’s great to be with you.

Candice Wu 2:53

I’m pumped to talk about all things, self-love.

Joffre McClung 2:58

Well, I can certainly talk about self-love for hours, so we’re in good shape.

Candice Wu 3:02

Yes. So you’ve written a couple of books. It sounds like you’re also on another, about self-love, and really digging into how to do that.

Joffre McClung 3:14

Oh, certainly. I’m actually redoing the second book, doing a new edition, so to speak, putting myself a bit more into the book.

Candice Wu 3:23

Oh, that’s fabulous.

Joffre McClung 3:25

So it’s kind of a new edition, a new book kind of?

Candice Wu 3:29

And is that for the Heart of the Matter?

Joffre McClung 3:31

Yes, it is. Which is, you know, a workbook and guide. And it gives you the meditations and the questions, ask yourself, of course, we have some dialogue in it. And I talked about different people I’ve helped along the way. But I kind of kept myself sort of generally out of it, except meditation-wise. I would say what I did in meditation. But now I’m going to go back, I’m going to put myself back intuitive of what happened in my life, why I started something, what triggered me, just, you know, give them my story. So they understand that I, too, came from a place of lack of self-love. So it’s sort of a new book. And yet, it’s really a new edition.

Candice Wu 4:06

Yeah, and I really love that, because that’s what I feel from you that you went on this journey for yourself. And that’s what these pieces, these books are pieces of the product of that, but that you really have gone through it. And it’s in your bones, it’s in your blood. Is that right?

Joffre McClung 4:24

Oh, you got that completely, perfectly!

Joffre McClung 4:27

It’s in my blood, it’s in my bones. It’s in my soul, for sure.

Candice Wu 4:30

Yeah! Well, tell me more.

Candice Wu 4:32

But first, I want to read this little piece of what you’ve written on your website about the Heart of the Matter, and maybe it’s in your book as well, I’m wondering if that connects up with what you’re saying about how you’re bringing more pieces of yourself, your story.

Candice Wu 4:46

So here’s the quote, “We’re meant to be whole. And that means healing and integrating those orphaned parts of ourselves. Believe it or not, every wound holds a forgotten gem just waiting to be rediscovered. And wounds are not only filled with unhealed pain, but also shrouds your ability to dream and create, to feel joy and excitement, to have faith and trust, to live with passion and compassion, and most importantly, to love and receive, to receive love.”

Candice Wu 5:17

I just, every part of my being agrees with that.

Joffre McClung 5:21

Oh, I’m so glad! Because it agrees with me too. Speaking from my experience —

Candice Wu 5:27

Yeah.

Joffre McClung 5:28

It, really, it came — I almost wrote that without me knowing I wrote it, to be honest with you. Sometimes I’ll sit down to write something. And it’ll just start to flow. And that is sort of one of those things that flowed out of me, because that’s what I was going through, the healing my inner orphans.

Joffre McClung 5:44

Because we all have different parts of ourselves that we’ve forgotten or shoved aside, or refused to look at, frankly, that we’re still carrying along with us in our adulthood, that are making decisions for us that we’re unaware of.

Joffre McClung 5:56

So I was in the midst of doing that, cleaning up, I would say finishing my orphan work. And when I was writing the book, I was thinking about my orphan and how I really wanted people to have the courage to look at their own orphan. And that when I wrote that, I was sort of looking back at what I had done. And realizing those orphans, the power, and the gifts, those orphans hold of ours, we go for a dream, but you’re going for a dream with maybe 15% of yourself, because the rest is shoved away kept safe with your orphan that you don’t want to, you know, deal with or your disowned. So that really came from my own experience, I have to say.

Candice Wu 6:31

That’s it. So I resonate with that. And, as you were saying that I was just thinking about the orphan parts of ourselves that are still acting. It’s like they insist on being seen. They insist on it. And our deeper self knows that we need that part. As you’re saying we have only “x” percentage of ourselves moving forward. And all these parts we’re trying to shove away that are being orphaned or disown. But there’s a deeper part of us that wants to bring it forward.

Joffre McClung 7:04

And they definitely speak up.

Candice Wu 7:06

Yeah. So tell me about that.

Joffre McClung 7:09

They want to be heard. They really, you can shut them down. You can ignore them for years, people ignore them for years, although they’re still making decisions from that place.

Candice Wu 7:17

For a long time.

Joffre McClung 7:18

Oh, yeah, for many lifetimes, but they ignore them. But the thing is that they are going to start to shout because they want to be heard. They want to be part of the whole, and you keep disowning them making them separate of the whole. So they’re going to shout, and they’re going to get louder, and louder, until you do something about it, either through drink or drugs, or you’re going to heal them, frankly, you have a choice. I, of course, decided to heal them.

Candice Wu 7:43

Yeah. And you know, it’s such an interesting thing, because they get louder and louder. And as I started to realize that, let me know how you experienced this. As I started to realize, wow, wait, I’ve hit rock bottom here. And that’s when I learned that or started to look at that, or out I had to get to this place, this pain, in this big way, to actually look at that thing that I knew was there.

Candice Wu 8:07

And so it’s like, I’m learning. Okay, why don’t I just do that before it gets to be like a catastrophe?

Joffre McClung 8:13

Because we have to learn that way in the beginning. I think every one of us who’s on this journey, just started with a dark night of the soul kind of feeling whether it’s a big one or a little one, is because something went wrong in our lives. And it didn’t work anymore, and something hurt us. And so it makes us stop. And then we look at what we’ve been shoving down.

Joffre McClung 8:30

So I don’t think you’re wrong in that. I think as we get wiser, hopefully, we look at things before they hit us in the face, and yell at us and stop us, you know, in our tracks. But I think that’s typical. That’s kind of how human beings, we feel like we can ignore it because it won’t bother us until it shouting. And then as we get hopefully, as we grow, we get wiser. And then we start to do the homework before it’s in our face.

Joffre McClung 8:55

You know, I’m there where I do it before it’s in my face doesn’t mean I’ll get a whisper. But I’ll get a little whisper. But I follow that whisper now. I don’t want it to get loud.

Candice Wu 9:04

I’m right with you. And at the same time there, my experience of the loudness if it gets to that point, feels different. Like, I don’t resist it as much. I understand it a little better. I can be with myself through it and have compassion that, that happened or what had built up for me to get to that place.

Candice Wu 9:27

But yeah, I would love to hear Joffre about one of those dark nights of the soul for you or some orphaned part of you that you’ve looked at.

Joffre McClung 9:38

Oh, I have so many I could talk about. It’s like which one do I pick?

Joffre McClung 9:43

Well, the first dark night of the soul probably is the most important dark night of the soul because this woke me up, that I needed changing and I needed to look at reality slightly differently.

Joffre McClung 9:53

And that dark night tends to happen later in life, for me it happened around 29. And that’s when I left a relationship with an ex I had and he was a wonderful man, but I left it because I knew it wasn’t right for me after nine years.

Joffre McClung 10:05

And I went dark, because suddenly I was back in my studio apartment, back in Manhattan in New York and living back in my studio after I left a beautiful brownstone, lived a lovely life with him. I was back in my little brownstone, doing my schlocky work, still doing audition work, but doing you know, schlocky work to pay the bills.

Joffre McClung 10:23

And I had a dark night because I thought this isn’t what I thought my life would be like when I was turning 30. And I suddenly realized, everything I believed was true, that I followed the rules, I went to acting school, I did my auditions, I fell in love. I did everything you’re supposed to do to have a good life. And here I was with my life falling apart, that really hit me over the head.

Joffre McClung 10:46

And then I started reading everything, every personal growth book I could read, every metaphysical book I could read, in fact, back then, this is how old I am. Back then, the metaphysical books and the spiritual books were in the occult section.

Joffre McClung 11:00

I’m not kidding, it was in the mid-early 80s, mid–80s. Really, they didn’t have a spiritual group or new age group, or whatever they call it now. Now, they just call it spiritual.

Joffre McClung 11:09

They didn’t have that. They had a kind of come in a put together within the occult groups, you had the witches over here, and then you had a few spiritual books over here.

Joffre McClung 11:17

So, I started reading spiritual books and that’s when I started to understand that we create our own reality with what we believe. That opened me up. Because I knew how I was living was no longer working. And I realized I was carrying beliefs. And then I began to do some of the work. So that was my first dark night of the soul was really, in, I’d say 29 years old, almost 30, where everything was falling apart, it woke me up to the fact that we actually do create our own reality through what we believe. And I obviously had a whole lot of negative beliefs that were ruling my life at that time.

Candice Wu 11:51

Yeah, what did you see in yourself at that time, as far as the beliefs that it sounds like they played out in your life in that way, and brought you to that place of seeing there?

Joffre McClung 12:02

Well, I had shoved them down, in all honesty.

Joffre McClung 12:06

I was doing my auditioning in New York, I was doing producing Off-Broadway plays also being in them, as well as producing them. I begin to make a few little short films. So I was, you know, doing what I loved, but not to the extent that I wanted to do it.

Joffre McClung 12:19

And that dark night, I realized underneath all the, I guess, you’d call it “bravado”, although I wasn’t particularly loud about it. But saying, “Yes, I can get this job, I’ll book this job, I’ll get this commercial, I’ll get this, you know, acting job.”

Joffre McClung 12:34

Underneath that was a feeling that I will never get that. Because underneath that, was a feeling of lack of self-love, that had come from childhood, things in my early childhood that I had made a decision that something was not quite right with me, so to speak.

Joffre McClung 12:48

Because I had certain family members who were extremely jealous and angry at me. And I took the blame for it. So I shoved all that down. But that was still ruling my life. Even though I was having the bravado saying, “I’m going to this audition, I’m going to book and -” but underneath with that feeling that I can’t have what I want. There’s something not quite right with me because I obviously piss people off and make them jealous and angry at me. So there was that level.

Joffre McClung 13:17

And there was also a level underneath that, a negative belief that I can’t have what I want. Because if I do have what I want, it’s going to make someone jealous of me and angry at me and hurt me.

Joffre McClung 13:27

So there were layers —

Candice Wu 13:28

That’s dangerous.

Joffre McClung 13:29

Oh, yeah, it was dangerous to have what I want. So there were layers. And I didn’t know all that even in the beginning. When I first started reading the books, it was just sort of opening my mind to the beliefs and how we create our own reality. That work came a bit later. But that was, I was well aware that, that was in there. I was trying to heal it in different ways. Not quite doing a great job at it. But I was well aware that, that stuff was in there. And I wanted it out of my head, frankly. And then I realized it was also in my heart. And that heart needed to be healed.

Candice Wu 14:01

Absolutely, can’t forget about the heart, because it’s holding all that pain.

Joffre McClung 14:05

Oh, definitely holds that pain. You can do all the affirmations you want. You can do all the techniques you want. But if you’re not healing the wound that’s in the heart, I think I call it in the book, “mental masturbation”, because you’re really kind of playing with your mind, which is important. You want to change your mind. But if you’re not healing, the heart is carrying the wound. You’re double lifting, so to speak.

Candice Wu 14:28

Yeah.

Joffre McClung 14:28

And you really need to go to the root of the heart, get your heart in sync, then your mind can follow. I know that’s kind of sounds weird to people. But that’s how it worked for me in all honesty.

Candice Wu 14:38

That’s what this whole entire show is about, being embodied.

Candice Wu 14:42

Being in your body and feeling through what’s here and healing those wounds. And I like what you said about double lifting, because we’re often, I think it’s a couple of things, you know, so many of us have learned to use our mind to get through something and survive something, because feeling it was too dangerous or hard or scary at the time or overwhelming.

Joffre McClung 15:06

Well, or we were too young.

Candice Wu 15:07

Yeah.

Joffre McClung 15:08

We didn’t know what to do with what we were feeling. So we kept shoving it down, or, I call it shelving it. I just shelve it. Deal with it later. And you know, you realize the years have gone by and you’ve been shelving everything.

Candice Wu 15:19

And then you’re so good at it.

Joffre McClung 15:21

Very good at it.

Joffre McClung 15:23

And actually, it does serve a purpose. Because there are times you do need to shelve something that you need when you get home. I can work, I can shelve something. And then when I get home, I can go to meditation and look at it and heal it.

Joffre McClung 15:33

So I mean, in that sense, it’s a good thing. But when we’re little, we shelved it because we don’t know what to do with it. And we also, when we’re younger, we take everything is our fault. Everything is our fault, doesn’t matter what it is, even though mentally I may have known this person is angry and jealous. And that’s them, not me. In my heart, I still believed it was me. Because there are negative beliefs that get built around what you keep experiencing.

Joffre McClung 15:59

So another negative belief it came out of that was some, you know, something was wrong with me, because otherwise, I wouldn’t have this person in my family that was so angry at me. You see how that negative belief gets played out, even though it had nothing to do with me. In all honesty, it was her issue, not mine. But I obviously agreed to play with it when it came down here.

Joffre McClung 16:19

Obviously, it needed to teach me what self-trust and self-love. So I’m grateful to this energy I was brought into. I don’t ever want to do it again, frankly. I hope I’ve learned the lesson. But I’m grateful for their lesson and the Nemesis and for what she taught me. Because it did guide me to find myself loving. I’m very firm in it now. It took me a while. But I’m very firm in it now.

Candice Wu 16:43

Yeah, I can hear that.

Candice Wu 16:45

So when you teach people through the meditations and other practices, how to heal the wound of their hearts. What do you offer? What do you suggest?

Joffre McClung 17:00

The way I started is I introduced them to their tools first, because I want them to know they can do this for themselves. I’m going to introduce them to the things, but they’re going to have to do the heavy lifting themselves. They’re going to have to go within and look within themselves.

Joffre McClung 17:13

So I introduced them to their tools, their imagination, because you’re going to use your imagination to dialogue with those inner orphans. I can’t tell you how many times I dealt dialogue with my inner orphan and learn something through that dialoguing.

Candice Wu 17:26

Oh, I did it this morning.

Joffre McClung 17:28

Exactly. You see, you obviously know what you’re doing. But you know, lot of people don’t use their imagination, except for worry. They’re good at thinking the worst-case scenario for work, for money or the relationship.

Candice Wu 17:40

Good point.

Candice Wu 17:41

You see people often using their imagination for worry, in a worrying way.

Joffre McClung 17:45

Yeah. As adults.

Joffre McClung 17:47

To daydream out the window, see if we used it well, when we were young, and then we grow up and we use it wrongly. We start using it for worrying.

Candice Wu 17:56

I see that. Worrying and creating the worst possible scenarios.

Joffre McClung 18:01

And what will I do if that does happen? That’s what we spend our imagination on.

Joffre McClung 18:06

So I introduced them to their imagination. I introduced them to their safe space, I let them use your imagination to meet their higher selves, to create this loving space, to add images to, kind of wake that part of their brain up again.

Joffre McClung 18:19

So they realize, “Oh, I do have an imagination and it can be loving to me, it doesn’t have to be the worst-case scenario.”

Joffre McClung 18:25

So I introduced them to their imagination, to their higher self, which is just the part of you that still knows it’s one with the divine and carries with it all the knowledge and power of that love, which we all have.

Joffre McClung 18:39

Some people call it their innate one. Some people call it their intuition. I don’t really care the name you call it, we all have one. But it’s the one that sees 360 degrees around, sees the forest and the trees at the same time. It’s your wise one, so to speak. And you can tune into that part of yourself in meditation, which I know you do. I have no doubt, to aid you in your journey. So I introduced them to that.

Joffre McClung 19:04

And then I introduced them to their third tool, their emotions. People are so afraid of emotions. And the thing is your emotions are part of your navigational system to move through this world. But we shove so many emotions away because we’re afraid of anger, or rage, or hurt, or fear, whatever it might be that we don’t get the lessons from those emotions.

Joffre McClung 19:26

Those emotions try to talk to us and tell us something. So I introduce them to their emotions, that can take some time, sometimes, depending.

Joffre McClung 19:34

Men take longer than women, interestingly enough, they’re fine with anger. But getting to the hurt underneath the anger takes them a little bit, you know, longer time. Women are a little more adaptive going to the hurt underneath the anger.

Joffre McClung 19:46

So I introduced them to their tools, that takes a little time. And then we go into talking about what self-love is. Because we can talk about self-love. But until you define it for somebody, it just sounds sort of “whoo, whoo ish,” so to speak.

Joffre McClung 20:01

I want self-love the way I define self-love, for me. And I help them get it is that it’s the part of you that knows in your heart, because I’ve got to include the heart, that you are lovable, loving, and loved.

Joffre McClung 20:17

And then we go and we break that down further. What does lovable mean? It means you’re worthy of love, you exist — therefore, in the universe’s eyes, you are worthy of love, doesn’t matter if another person ever gives it to you, you know you are worthy of love.

Joffre McClung 20:34

Loving means that you know you are given a loving heart that is your natural state of being. You have a naturally loving heart. And how you express that loving heart is more than good enough. And loved simply means that you matter and are valued by the universe, not for what you do, not for what you will do, but because you are you. You don’t have to earn it, you don’t have to prove it. You don’t have to do anything. You simply are loved because you exist. And you are — you matter.

Joffre McClung 21:14

So we go through that and then we get to the orphans. What you and I have talked about. Because, as you well know, the orphans are key, because they will shout you down.

Candice Wu 21:27

And for good reason. You know, there’s that, as you said, this whole load of energy that’s waiting for you there and all the goodness that is like a treasure box waiting to be discovered within what we’ve closed down. But at the same time, there’s pain, there’s fear, and other emotions that are harder.

Joffre McClung 21:49

Oh, yeah. And the thing is, there is great treasure with the orphan because they hold so much of your dream, so much of your joy, so much of your power. You need it back, frankly, we’re supposed to be all that we can be. And if you’re keeping parts of yourself away, you can’t be all that you can be.

Joffre McClung 22:04

So then, I introduce them to their orphans. And each person is different. Certain orphans take longer to bring out. I had several. Now they’re all sort of the same. But I saw different images for different when I was working on different beliefs from that orphan.

Joffre McClung 22:19

Someone be hiding in a cave. The first one I met was hiding in a cave, unwashed, dirty, matted, filthy, did not want anything to do with me. Did not want to look at me. Didn’t want anything to do with me.

Joffre McClung 22:31

So it took time just to gain trust from that orphan. Then I would — after I worked with that one for a bit, I met another version of the orphan and this one was shouting me out. It called me into the woods and it shouted me down. It yelled at me, shouted at me, screamed at me, had a tantrum. It’s the one I needed to have a tantrum. Yeah.

Candice Wu 22:50

Yeah.

Joffre McClung 22:51

So I let it have a tantrum. And I listened. And I said, “That’s just horrible. I’m so sorry.” And I just listened.

Joffre McClung 22:57

So you meet your orphan. And you listen in the beginning. Sometimes if they won’t talk to you to say I’m here, going to sit here and be with you, you may do that several times. And then they may start to say something to you, or do something, or have an image for you, whatever. However your brain works, people, images, some people it’s words, you’ll know when it’s real.

Joffre McClung 23:18

And then you’ll begin to listen to them and say I want to hear what you have to say. And they’ll start to tell you, either shouting at you or one which has crawled into my lap, just crawled in my lap and boohooed. So I just held it, let it boohoo, because it needed to boohoo and be loved.

Joffre McClung 23:34

Another one needed to have a tantrum, another one needed to ignore me. So you deal with each orphan and really come from the same place. But you deal with each orphan as they need to be dealt with. It’s their time. And it teaches you how to have compassion for the different parts of yourself. Because you’re learning how to have compassion for yourself. Does that make any sense?

Candice Wu 23:56

Oh, completely? Yeah, that’s what I’m practicing almost every day at this point. You know, what I find is that there are ways that these parts of me want a certain kind of loving or acknowledgment, and being with, that usually is just what I didn’t get before. And the hardest part about that is that it sometimes, I didn’t know what was needed. But as the ball got rolling with some support from other people, my healer, many healers along the way, it just started to get easier and easier. And now, it’s like second nature. But how did you find that place for you? How did you know what was needed? How did you know how to give it to yourself?

Joffre McClung 24:46

Well, like you, I had a lot of teachers and healers and helpers along the way that would show up and give me information. So I mean, I certainly didn’t do this on my own. A lot of helpers and healers and a lot of books also. And I sort of put it all together. Because I would do one thing and it wouldn’t get me that far — or would get me so far. And then it would stop. And then I would get information from someone else. And I would add that to it. So I sort of did layers.

Joffre McClung 25:10

And then I began to say, “You know what, I can do this.” I know — because being an actor helped a lot. Because I am able to dialogue a lot easier than people who aren’t used to dialoguing. Because I would practice line. So obviously practicing lines, it’s like talking to your orphan.

Candice Wu 25:25

Yeah.

Joffre McClung 25:26

So in that sense, it came a little easier if you’re in the performing arts and somebody who’s not. And there are times I didn’t know the answer either. And those are good times. Meaning, that means you’re going to leap when you get it. When they’re tough, and you can’t seem to get the answer, and you keep hitting the same wall, that’s a good sign that you’re getting ready to leap, or you wouldn’t be hitting that wall to begin with.

Joffre McClung 25:47

That’s the way I started to see it happen. When I’d hit that wall, and I kept going back to, let’s say, a particular orphan and kept getting sort of semi answers, but not the full answer, and not knowing what I needed to give them in return to bring them back to wholeness, it would be so frustrating. And so I go deeper with them. And I would listen a little deeper, and then I would find a new level. And eventually, I began to get hit of what it was they were needing for me. And it was my higher self who really helped me the most.

Joffre McClung 26:16

“I am key. I’m working with my higher self.” Like I said, I had a healer, I had people that channel that I worked with. And a lot of good guides and teachers. But really it was my higher self.

Joffre McClung 26:28

In the meditation, I always have everyone bring their higher self into the meditation, when we’re working with anything, frankly. But definitely when you’re working with your orphan, so that you feel like they’re holding your hand as you’re holding your orphan’s hand.

Joffre McClung 26:42

So as you’re talking to your orphan, your higher self can be talking to you. So my higher self would be the one because I would be boohooing with my orphan over whatever they need to do that because you’re feeling what they’re boohooing, you’re feeling it as well. So I would feel that and then when they were done, I would turn my higher self booing in her arms. And then I would get information from her —

Candice Wu 27:04

Beautiful.

Joffre McClung 27:04

That I had not gotten earlier. So really, it was the higher self-work that really came from a channel that I had worked with, who said you’ve got a higher self that’s dying to work with you, keep working with her.

Joffre McClung 27:15

So I kept working with my higher self. And I got that really strong. And so when I started this orphan work, she was right there with me.

Joffre McClung 27:22

Some nights, I turned her and said, “I don’t know what to say to them. Because I believe everything they’re saying.”

Joffre McClung 27:27

I would literally, I feel their pain, that what they felt when they were young. And I say, “I’m sorry, but I believe what they’re saying,”

Candice Wu 27:33

Right! I’m right there. This is me right now.

Joffre McClung 27:37

It was horrible, they didn’t deserve that, I can’t help them.

Joffre McClung 27:41

And I would turn to her, what do I say? And she would give me one sentence, one word, whatever it was, was enough to calm me down. And I’d be able to offer that word to the orphan and calm them down, and then I could start the work again.

Candice Wu 27:53

Beautiful.

Joffre McClung 27:54

So that’s the best example.

Joffre McClung 27:55

So higher self, I think, is key in doing any inner work, whether it’s self-love work or creation work, because I use her for creation work as well. But your higher self is key. And again, it comes from images or words it doesn’t, it’s not going to be big dialogues. My higher self doesn’t give me a huge, you know, paragraphs of wording. But she gives me an image or a word or a look or something that says it all.

Candice Wu 28:19

Beautiful.

Joffre McClung 28:20

And I can roll with that. So really, a higher self, I’d have to say was my biggest helper, and also my teachers.

Candice Wu 28:27

What a lovely reminder.

Joffre McClung 28:28

Yeah.

Candice Wu 28:28

It’s such a good reminder of everything is within. And I do experience that.

Joffre McClung 28:34

It really is. And you need your teachers and you need your books, and your seminars and your lectures or whatever it is, because we need to be around other people who are doing what we’re doing. So that’s a good thing. And you’re always going to have the help you need. But just like you said, “Everything you really do need is already inside of you. And part of the journey is figuring out that you can find it inside of you.” And sometimes it’s frustrating. Sometimes it’s tough. But that’s okay. Because you start to trust that you’re going to find it and you do. And like you said, “It does get easier and easier.” at least I found that way too.

Candice Wu 29:07

Yeah, I have to. And sometimes it’s gone up and down. But then, at some point, it started to get like more smooth sailing in a way. But I’m wondering, Joffre, what frustrations or challenges or struggles have you had lately?

Joffre McClung 29:26

Well, lately, I would say the biggest struggle is I have a family member who has liver cancer. So outwardly, I’m dealing with cancer again, which I dealt with eight years of everybody around me dying.

Joffre McClung 29:39

I’m not saying that to be funny, but it was true. My mother got cancer, my best friend, like my soul sister, got cancer, my aunt and uncle died. It’s like that, eight years was literally everybody dying around me. And of course, my job in New York City all kind of left and I moved to Texas, and then I had a three-year break, and in those three years, I wrote the two books.

Joffre McClung 29:58

And I thought, “Okay, this is a new path. This is not a path I had planned on, frankly. I always thought I’d be more performing. But this is still creative. Writing is creative.”

Joffre McClung 30:08

So I thought, “Okay, this is a good thing.”

Joffre McClung 30:10

And then all of a sudden, in January, I got the word that a family member had liver cancer. And I — that sort of took me by surprise. I thought I was kind of done with the “C” word so to speak.

Joffre McClung 30:23

Outwardly, that sort of threw me but in a weird way. Because this person is also the person who mirrored for me, my need for self-love, through her jealousy and anger is sort of in a weird way, I don’t know how to say this, except to say, it’s also a bit liberating.

Joffre McClung 30:41

I know that sounds odd to people. But when that person leaves the planet, because I will at some point, leave the planet. I truly will be free. I’m free now in all honesty, but I will literally truly be free from all ties, so to speak.

Joffre McClung 31:02

So really we’ll begin a new life for me. So, I’m sort of going back and forth kind of struggling with it. And yet owning that that’s what I’m feeling, so I shouldn’t disown, that’s what I’m feeling.

Candice Wu 31:12

It’s what you’re feeling.

Joffre McClung 31:14

So that’s what I’m feeling Candice.

Candice Wu 31:16

Yeah, thank you for sharing that. And do you mind me asking if that person is currently still mirroring that need?

Joffre McClung 31:26

Oh, yeah, she did that recently.

Candice Wu 31:27

Right. Like in the same way as before she did.

Joffre McClung 31:30

She has not healed a thing, to be honest. I don’t think this lifetime. I think she had her opportunities when she was younger, but it’s not going to happen. She mirrored it a couple of weeks back out of the blue, the jealous rage came at me, sort of caught me a little off guard because I wasn’t expecting it. And when I hung up, I said this kind of got on me.

Joffre McClung 31:51

So I did a quick meditation and reminded myself who this person is. Because it was so shocking. She had not done that in quite a while. Because when my mother was ill, I would not have it. Because my mother also received some of the jealousy.

Joffre McClung 32:07

So it sort of caught me off guard. So I did a quick meditation, got it off me and reminded myself who this was. And that what she said does not mean it’s true. Because anybody who deals with people who are angry or jealous, they tend to bring in other people to their conversation.

Joffre McClung 32:24

Well, I’m not just the one saying it, everybody saying it. That tends to be how they work. They like to add people to their blame of you.

Candice Wu 32:33

To back it up.

Joffre McClung 32:34

Exactly. And it’s you know, you can see that out in politics. Now, we get into politics. But you see how people bring that up? Well, they said, you know, people say, when I hear that, I think “aha” you’re saying it, no one else is saying that. You’re saying it.

Candice Wu 32:46

Right. It’s easy to fall in that trap. But you’re saying you know better?

Joffre McClung 32:50

Yeah, I do but it caught me off guard and for a moment, — oh, my God, people are saying this about me. And then I thought, first of all, these people, I don’t know them, so who cares.

Joffre McClung 33:00

And then I thought, wait a minute, I know how this energy, this bully energy works. They always bring in other people to back them up, even though they’re actually lying.

Joffre McClung 33:10

So I had to remind myself of that fact. And so I was able to forgive it. And then I said, “You know what, she’s not going to get it this life.”

Joffre McClung 33:18

I got the lesson I needed from her. So I blessed her in that sense. But her energy still has it. She still has that angry energy. We’re still talking. I’m still friendly with her. I’m going to go see her next week. I do love her. In that sense. I do not perfectly want to be around her very much. But I do love her. And I do wish her well. And I have put out my order for my next life. She’s on her own in her next life.

Joffre McClung 33:47

She’s gonna have to work on jealousy again, and I’m not working on jealousy again.

Candice Wu 33:50

Right. Like, you don’t want to be paired again, is that what you’re saying?

Joffre McClung 33:54

No, exactly. I don’t mind if we passed in the hall or something’s fine. But as far as being family members, I think I’ll skip it the next slide until she gets this jealousy thing over with.

Candice Wu 34:04

Put your order in. Yeah.

Joffre McClung 34:06

Because I’m done with it. I got my list. And I’ve learned it and I don’t need it now.

Candice Wu 34:12

Sounds like you’ve had a lifetime of learning that.

Joffre McClung 34:15

Yeah, it was intense, I have to say.

Joffre McClung 34:16

We all have something within our families, or in our childhood or friends, or teachers or something, that if you came here to wake up, you’re going to have something that happens to you.

Candice Wu 34:17

Absolutely.

Joffre McClung 34:21

Something that’s not so pretty, that’s going to get you and bring you down so that you can build yourself back up, in some form or fashion. Mine happened to be from sort of that anger, jealousy, bully energy, other people, it’s something else. Mine happened to be that, and I learned my lesson. But —

Candice Wu 34:44

Yeah.

Joffre McClung 34:44

So that’s sort of what I’m dealing with now, that it’s okay to kind of be okay, that it’s — I’m going to be free from it.

Candice Wu 34:52

Wow.

Joffre McClung 34:53

And still, bless her, you know, and still wish her well. But I will be free from it fairly shortly, I would presume.

Candice Wu 35:01

Yeah. No, I think you’re touching on something about how you can see the reality of your life, like how you can see the experiences that are happening to, there’s a relational component, there’s the care that you have for her, there’s also the other feelings that you may have.

Candice Wu 35:19

And there’s this other level of what it means to you, and what this person has represented for you and shown you. And they don’t always sound relational, like that portion doesn’t always sound relational, as you’re saying, like, it’s a little bit hard to say this, but this is, I’ll be free of —

Joffre McClung 35:39

Well, yeah —

Candice Wu 35:39

Makes complete sense on that level.

Joffre McClung 35:41

Well, it’s true. And the thing is, what’s funny is the reason I can sort of see her separate from me, you know, I can see and bless her for what she taught me is because again, in one meditation I went into, I did a meditation to understand how this person is in so much pain. Because somebody who comes from a bully or jealous or angry place, is carrying a lot of pain, even though we may not want them around us and they’ve heard us horribly, we have to intellectually know they’ve got a lot of pain to act that way.

Joffre McClung 36:09

So I went into meditation so I could better understand where she’s coming from. So I could find forgiveness for her.

Joffre McClung 36:16

I was, you know, finishing up that little matrix for myself. And I went to meditation, and I saw her as a five-year-old and what she must have felt, and how she felt so unseen and heard, unlovable. And I got to the fact she felt so unloved. And once I felt that, I was able to understand why she was so full of anger and jealousy. So I was able to forgive her for how she behaved towards me. I still don’t want it around me, I still have my boundaries. But I can understand her pain that she’s carrying.

Joffre McClung 36:49

And also that, I agreed to do this because I needed to learn to take my power back from bullies, and jealousy, and angry people. Because obviously, that was the thing I needed to work on. So there’s sort of layers in there.

Joffre McClung 37:01

But I mean, when you can go into meditation and figure out what that person, why they’re being so hateful to you and understand what kind of pain they have, it does gives you some release.

Joffre McClung 37:11

And then to realize when they do that, because I do believe in many lifetimes — I know other people may not, but I happen to — that I realized she’s going to have another chance to get it, and that’s fine, because I told her and thanked her for showing me what I needed to get. And I did a whole thing on that, thanking her.

Joffre McClung 37:27

I didn’t do it to her face, because that she would not take it well. But I thanked her for showing me what I needed to learn about self-love and that I got it. So even though she may not have succeeded at jealousy and bullying, she did succeed in teaching me what I needed to learn. So she did do that well. So I did a whole thank you meditation on that. And thank her.

Candice Wu 37:48

She gave you such a beautiful opportunity. And painful one, but beautiful.

Joffre McClung 37:53

Painful. It was ugly, to be honest with you. I don’t wish it on anybody.

Candice Wu 37:58

Yeah. And at the same time, it sounds worth it. Would you say?

Joffre McClung 38:02

Well, again, if we look at life, he’s here to teach us something, and we’re here to learn and grow, then you got to figure out there’s something here that’s good. It’s got to be something good in this bullying and jealousy, anger. So I dealt with that. And I learned self-love. So it was a good thing.

Candice Wu 38:15

Yeah.

Joffre McClung 38:16

I don’t wish it on anyone. But again, that’s how we learn, isn’t it? Down here.

Candice Wu 38:20

Yeah. So I’m curious, as a writer, and as an actress as well, what’s the title of the current chapter of your life?

Joffre McClung 38:31

That’s a good question. What’s the title of this chapter of my life?

Joffre McClung 38:37

“Begin again.”

Joffre McClung 38:40

I just got that Begin Again. Because I feel like this is a brand new life. I’ve let go of my old life. It was a good life. I did it. I did it well, but I’ve let it go, who I was, what I wanted to do, sort of the dreams of youth and Middle Ages sort of let that go. And said, “Okay, what’s this again? I’ve done my healing. I’ve done my orphan work, what is I want to do?” And now I’m doing all this spiritual writing.

Joffre McClung 39:06

So it’s sort of begin again, and it’s sort of a brand new life with new fulfilling ideas, new dreams, new hopes, kind of like starting over again, frankly. I actually have one affirmation, I do is: “I’m now in the best years of my life, and all my remaining years are my best years.” So I sort of feel like this is my new beginning. Beginning again. Yeah. I would say definitely that.

Candice Wu 39:31

That’s really exciting.

Joffre McClung 39:32

Because we do get many chances to begin again, frankly. I mean, that, anybody thinks that when you’re in your 20s, you think you’re going to live one kind of life certain time, certain kind of framing, by 30, I have this. By 40, I have this. By 50, I have this.

Joffre McClung 39:45

Well, I’ve got news for you, if you’re going to live a full life, you might as well throw that away. Because it’s not going to live up to that. It’s going to go to the right, to the left, up and down. It’s going to go all over the place as it should. And hopefully — I’m on my third life, frankly.

Joffre McClung 39:59

They call it third act, but really to third law. I have my 20s and 30s. I hit my 30s and 40s. And I had my 50s and 60s to look at.

Joffre McClung 40:07

So it’s like, we know, okay, I’m doing a whole new life. I may have another one after this. I don’t know. Can’t look forward —

Joffre McClung 40:15

Right now, I’ve got my third act going, so to speak.

Candice Wu 40:18

Yeah. You know, I so relate to that. And I feel those words to begin again, and the refreshing space of not knowing and being so, it sounds like so joyful in that. So open about what’s coming. And it took me so long to get here. And I still come across these. They’re just fewer now and less big, I think. But the expectations, I didn’t realize were there, and then I bump up against it. I’m like, “Wait, what is that? What is that big disappointment?” or, “What is that I’m fighting for? But do I really want that anymore? Is that a past part of me?”

Candice Wu 40:58

Like lately, I’ve been wondering, do I really want children? Or, was that just something of the past, you know, my 16-year-old self that decided I wanted two kids? And what part of me still wants that? Do I really want to get married? All these things.

Joffre McClung 41:14

Oh, that’s good, you’re in a good place. That’s a good place you’re in.

Joffre McClung 41:17

Because those are the questions? No, I mean that seriously. I know. —

Joffre McClung 41:22

But that’s a good thing. Because you know, as women we’re raised for, even when we’re little and younger, we’re raised with certain things, putting our heads. We’re supposed to get married, supposed to have children, supposed to have this by 40s, supposed to have this by 50s. All these ideas — and I think it’s a good thing to stop and ask yourself: do I really want that?

Joffre McClung 41:38

I kind of knew weirdly enough that when I was younger, I remember announcing to my parents when I was in high school that I was never going to get married, and I had no intention get married. And if I did get married, I would never take their names.

Joffre McClung 41:50

For some reason that —

Candice Wu 41:51

A declaration.

Joffre McClung 41:52

I would not take their damn names, is what I shouted when I was in high school.

Joffre McClung 41:56

And what’s interesting enough is, I didn’t get married. Now, I did live with someone for nine years and had a loving relationship and then I moved on. But I kind of knew that in high school. Although, I still thought in my head, “Oh, I probably will get married. I’ll probably have kids, I’ll probably do what I’m supposed to do.”

Joffre McClung 42:12

But the truth of the matter is, I kind of knew I wasn’t going to live my life the way my mother had lived her life. Something in me told me I was going to do it slightly differently. And boy, did I do it differently.

Candice Wu 42:22

Sounds like it. Yeah.

Joffre McClung 42:24

That’s a good thing to ask yourself. Do you want children? Maybe do you want to adopt children? Maybe you want to foster kids?

Candice Wu 42:30

Right.

Joffre McClung 42:30

Maybe you want to have children that you’re helping therapeutically? Yeah, who knows?

Candice Wu 42:36

Someone asked me, do I want to be a grandmother?

Candice Wu 42:38

And I was like, “Yes.” And then I was like, “Wow, I really have a dilemma here.”

Candice Wu 42:44

Well, I’m not sure if I want kids, but I want to be a grandmother.

Joffre McClung 42:47

But you can be a grandmother to children without having to have kids, you can find a way. You may find through your therapeutic, you may find a group of kids that need some help. You may find kids who —

Candice Wu 42:59

This is so true.

Joffre McClung 43:00

Again, you want to be a grandparent without having to actually raise children, the universe can find a way. That, I do believe. So I think you do want children, you may not want to give birth to children.

Candice Wu 43:10

No, I do. I want that part. I have a really special place for birthing and for mothers and babies. And I think it’s the — and I used to be an art teacher and do a lot of therapy with kids and families, and so I think I just kind of got, “childrened” out. A part of me has. You know, just kind of burned out on that. But the years of like to the, I don’t know, 20 — not sure about.

Candice Wu 43:41

And you know, I have so many friends right now with young babies. And so I get the joy of going in and not leaving.

Joffre McClung 43:52

There’s nothing good about leaving the children once you’ve loved them and played with them, they’re really lovely about not having to go through that, and not having to go through teenage years.

Candice Wu 44:00

Yeah.

Joffre McClung 44:00

Here are some good things. I actually, again, it’s the thing about your beliefs like I know I’ve done children, many lifetimes. So it was like this lifetime, I took a break.

Joffre McClung 44:08

I knew I needed to do my inner work. Somehow, I didn’t know that but I knew it, even if that sounds odd. I thought it was all going to be about acting. But now I look, it’s all about what I’m doing now, my whole life has been filled to this moment, although I love acting. And I still love acting. But, and I’m actually using it when I teach classes in a weird way. I’m contorted in being a performer. So in a weird way, it all comes together.

Joffre McClung 44:30

But I think, what you said about leaving, having children and being able to leave them is not a bad thing, to be honest with you. But also you might be changing who you are, who you were when you’re 20 and who you are in your 30s is different, and who you’re in your 40s is different.

Joffre McClung 44:47

And your dreams do change. Like you were saying something about beginning again. That, that was a good phrase, but — and I look and I realized, when you’ve done your homework and you’ve healed, really healed your past, and healed your orphans, and you’re coming from rooted self-love, you do get a new life and your dreams do change.

Candice Wu 45:06

Yeah.

Joffre McClung 45:06

And so you may have new dreams that you may not have even considered. Now that you’ve been healing things and moving and more into your power, you may, those dreams may be completely different. And you’re going to leave room for that, going to leave room for it to be different.

Candice Wu 45:19

That’s absolutely what I’ve experienced in my life.

Candice Wu 45:23

And someone had asked me recently, like, when did you get involved with horses? And their perception was, I’ve been with horses forever. And I think that is true on some level. But in this lifetime, I only started being with horses one year ago, and that surprise this person a great deal. Because I’ve been really in it now. And that was the gem coming out of that moment was, we can change our life at any moment. We can shift something so big. And I do feel like, that is a big shift. Shifting my life to be around horses and be with them, it’s continuing to unfold.

Candice Wu 46:02

But I would have never known that 5 years ago, 10 years ago, especially, you know, when I was, I don’t know, 15, 20 years old, deciding, trying to decide what my life would be like. But I’ve definitely found what you’re saying, as well, that each step of healing, it’s more opening, and then more comes in. Things I didn’t even know would be ever involved in my life. So that’s really cool. You have that too.

Joffre McClung 46:30

Oh, yeah. And you don’t know — that’s part of growing older and getting wiser. And not just because I say older. And I have to be careful because I know older people who have no wisdom. So I’ve got to be careful with that.

Joffre McClung 46:40

There are people who get older who leave the planet and not learned anything. But if you stay awake and as you get older, you begin to realize that life does bring you new things when you’re ready for it and you’ve done the work for it.

Joffre McClung 46:52

You were ready for the horses. And what’s funny is you probably had many lifetimes with horses.

Candice Wu 46:57

I feel that, yeah. It’s coming back.

Joffre McClung 46:59

Probably had a deep connection with horses. And so you did whatever you needed to do, to be open now to receive those horses that you didn’t even dream of when you were 15 or 16. Or, when you were 20. That’s what the universe — Like I didn’t dream of writing books. I thought I’d be on Broadway doing my thing, and maybe doing some film work and living my life. And then my life took a 180-degree turn, and I had to do something to pull myself out of that second dark night which was when everybody was dying around me. And I decided, all right, what I’m going through and I wrote the first book which was helping my friend deal with Stage IV Breast cancer, that was a 180-degree turn. And I wrote that kind of angrily to be honest with you.

Candice Wu 47:45

Emotions as navigation. There you go.

Joffre McClung 47:47

Oh, Lord have mercy! I was like, “Higher self, you want me to write about what I’m going through?”

Joffre McClung 47:51

Oh my Lord! I just want to get back to what I was doing. And I thought, well, I’ll do it. It’ll get her quiet on my back.

Candice Wu 47:57

Get this out of the way, go back to what I was going to do.

Joffre McClung 48:00

I’ll write this darn book and I’ll now wake my inner self up. And I wrote the book and that kind of got my creative juices going.

Candice Wu 48:10

Yeah.

Joffre McClung 48:11

And then when I looked at it a few months later, I thought, Okay, well, I put the word out there that I’m spiritual. Everybody, you know, I had two groups, those who knew I was spiritual and those who knew me in my career. I kind of kept them separate. And I thought, well, the words out there now, they now know —

Candice Wu 48:12

You’re out.

Joffre McClung 48:15

That I’m a spiritual person.

Candice Wu 48:17

Yeah.

Joffre McClung 48:18

About, spiritual closet, so to speak. Now, when I looked at the first book, I thought, you know what, I gotta really say, how I got to self-love.

Joffre McClung 48:35

The first book talks about when we’re in self-love, but we don’t tell people how to get to self-love. So I wrote the second book. But all this is to the point. I didn’t plan on that. This was not part of my plan. And yet, when I look back at my life, I realized, of course, it was part of my plan.

Joffre McClung 48:50

In fact, I wrote a movie with my best friend who the first book was about, and we wrote a book together in the movie.

Candice Wu 48:56

How funny.

Joffre McClung 48:58

And she always wanted to be a teacher. She was a channel and she spiritually did all the spiritual stuff together. And we were also actors together. And she wanted to be this. She wanted to do what I’m doing. Now she passed on, and I can hear her laughing going, “Yeah, I want to do what you’re doing. You’re supposed to be doing what you’re doing.”

Candice Wu 49:15

This is like I’m already out.

Joffre McClung 49:17

Yeah, I’ll do that in the next life. And I thought how weird that I did a 180-degree turn. And I’m actually doing my best friend that I put in a movie, 10 years before I knew it. So the universe is funky.

Candice Wu 49:30

Well, we are funky, right?

Candice Wu 49:32

We like to leave ourselves clues and then forget about them, or like ignore them. And then we find them later. Like, wow, right!

Joffre McClung 49:39

It’s just weird. When I wrote that in this book, The second book, and I thought, “Man that first short film I made. Oh my god. I really did it.”

Candice Wu 49:51

Yeah.

Joffre McClung 49:51

And that was just a film about you know, making creating dreams. You know, it was a little film about creating dreams.

Joffre McClung 49:56

But the universe, you may have horses now, who knows what you’re going to have in five years.

Candice Wu 50:01

I have no clue.

Candice Wu 50:03

No clue, but I have some ideas. But then, what I know is that keeps changing so much that I just don’t put too much to them, except for the ones that are like right now, and coming up.

Joffre McClung 50:13

Living in the present. I told a friend recently, he was getting off the charted, so to speak, because he was thinking, “Oh, I’m getting older, what’s going to happen when I’m old, and I only have a place till -?”

Joffre McClung 50:22

He went way down the pike. And what he didn’t have and how horrible it can be when he’s old and didn’t have any money.

Joffre McClung 50:28

I said, “First of all, you got to stop going that far down the pike.”

Joffre McClung 50:31

There’s nothing you can do that far down the pike, you’re just putting something in your head, and getting yourself all excited about it. I said, “I’ve learned now that my life keeps taking these weird angles.”

Joffre McClung 50:41

I look about maybe three months ahead. And that’s about as far as I look, just to kind of know: this is where I’m going, this is kind of what I want to create. And I don’t look much further, because it keeps me calmer. I don’t sit there and think about what am I going to be doing five years from now? Because I don’t know. I really don’t know.

Candice Wu 50:58

Yeah, I am right where you are actually, that’s exactly where I am. And it’s funny because my dad has started to realize that about me and he is the planner. And that’s where my planner, the —

Joffre McClung 51:12

I’ve got a planner.

Candice Wu 51:13

Yeah, he plans everything. And once it’s all planned out, it comes from this, like, the desire for security and stability comes from him. And lately, he’s realized, “Yeah, I don’t plan more than about two months ahead anymore.” And he’s like, “Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Right. That is… that’s you.”

Joffre McClung 51:32

Well, that’s good news that he gets that.

Candice Wu 51:35

He gets it.

Joffre McClung 51:35

A lot of people would say, “No, you need to be planning now.”

Candice Wu 51:41

That’s what he used to say. And he’s like, “Are you sure? You know? Like, that’s not? I don’t think that’s gonna be okay.”

Candice Wu 51:46

“No, Dad, it’s okay.”

Joffre McClung 51:49

Say you taught him to see — you actually teaching him something. That’s the cool thing. —

Candice Wu 51:54

He’s seeing something different. Yeah.

Joffre McClung 51:56

Yeah. I mean saying that, “Hey, my way may work for me. But you know what, it doesn’t have to work for everyone.” So you’ve taught him something.

Candice Wu 52:02

Thank goodness!

Joffre McClung 52:02

That’s kind of cool.

Candice Wu 52:03

I mean, that’s — Yeah, that’s so intertwined with my lesson with him, because one of my lessons with him was to be in myself and trust myself and not allow his idea to be mine.

Joffre McClung 52:21

Got you!

Candice Wu 52:22

It, which was like, I experienced it as more imposed on me, in the past, out of his own care and fear.

Joffre McClung 52:29

Always out of love. I mean —

Candice Wu 52:30

Right, always, but so we’ve both come a long way.

Joffre McClung 52:35

Well, that’s pretty exciting.

Candice Wu 52:36

Yeah.

Candice Wu 52:38

So I’m going to switch gears. I recently had this dream that I lost this beloved water bottle.

Joffre McClung 52:49

Wow, okay. And you love this water bottle.

Candice Wu 52:51

On an airplane — I loved it so much. I just, I loved it so much. And I was devastated in the dream. And when I got home, after my flight, my mom said, “You know, you’re just probably better off without it. Just let it go. You’re better off without it.”

Candice Wu 53:09

And here I am in this dream, kind of like obsessing over how am I going to find the next water bottle, the better — Like, “No, this won’t do and that won’t do. I wanted that one.”

Candice Wu 53:19

And she’s like, “You’re probably better off.”

Candice Wu 53:22

And so that’s been sticking with me and I’m experiencing — getting rain.

Candice Wu 53:27

Yeah.

Joffre McClung 53:28

I love dreamwork. I love to dream.

Candice Wu 53:29

I was wondering, that’s leading to my question. I’m wondering, what have you dreamed lately that, in your night dreams?

Joffre McClung 53:37

Well, you know that your mother in that dream was your higher self most likely, you do know that?

Candice Wu 53:42

Yes. And it is my mother too. It’s both.

Joffre McClung 53:45

My mother — Yeah, exactly. My higher self when she first appeared to me, and she appeared at — looking like a beautiful version of my mother. Sort of in a half-dream state that I was doing. And then she sort of shifted out where I don’t have to see her anymore, just feel her. But yeah, that’s definitely your mother, except for your higher self saying you don’t need what you think you need. You’ve outgrown it, is what she’s really telling you.

Candice Wu 54:00

That’s right. It’s time to let go.

Joffre McClung 54:08

I used to do so much dream work. When I was started — I’ve always done dream work. Even when I was younger, I’d have dreams over and over again. And then when I started the spiritual work, I’d have really mega dreams. I call them epic dreams, one symbol after another symbol, after another symbol.

Joffre McClung 54:23

And I worked with them, you know, worked with them immensely. And all of a sudden, when my mother passed, my dream stopped. And I thought what is happening here? I’ve never not remembered my dreams. And they just stopped. And I was like, “Okay, this isn’t good.”

Joffre McClung 54:40

Because I mean, I had dreams where I had guides talk to me, my higher self talk to me. I would go to other planets. I would see symbols. I would talk to my — you know. I did a lot of homework in my dreams and my dreams just stopped.

Joffre McClung 54:51

And I remember dealing with a channel that I worked with, and she goes, “Well, you don’t need your dreams right now.”

Joffre McClung 54:58

You’re grieving, number one, and you’re doing your homework. I was doing, finishing up my homework on my orphans. I was grieving so I use the energy from my orphan work. And they went away for a while. And that was really scary for somebody — I don’t channel. I don’t do visions. I don’t see entities. I don’t do any of that stuff, but I did dreams. And I could really help people with their dreams.

Joffre McClung 55:18

So when I didn’t have my dreams, that was kind of scary. Well, I’m happy to say my dreams, they sort of come back not to the extent that they were for years. But now when they come back, there’s just a quick message. And then they drift off. Just a quick message.

Joffre McClung 55:34

I had one recently that was so cute. I was calling a kitty in. And kitties being that feminine energy, calling a kitty in, and with a kitty, was a little fox, like a baby fox. A red-faced little fox, red and white-faced, almost like a cartoon looking fox. And it was there saying hello to me. And it was so cute. And I said, “Well, all right, I guess you can come in too,” so I let it come in the house. And that was the end of the dream.

Joffre McClung 55:59

I was saying there’s so short now that used to be epic. And I thought, what in the world was that message?

Joffre McClung 56:05

So what’s this fox — other than I love animals, obviously. But I thought interesting. I thought well, the feminine is healthy. I’m letting — you know, taking care of the feminine energy. And I thought a fox is sort of like a — sort of, got that feminine energy. But it’s also got a wise energy to it. It’s got a smart energy to it. It’s got smart, wise, they — that negative is sly, but when you take the negative off and put the wise, smart, I thought okay, I must be — I’ve been asking to have my teacher awaken a bit more. Since I’m doing this, let’s awaken my inner teacher a bit more.

Joffre McClung 56:41

So I took that as a message that my inner teacher is awakening. That’s how I took the fox. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But that’s how I took it.

Candice Wu 56:48

Thank you for sharing your dream. And I also hear that begin again right here. And that this fox baby is with the kitty, which is so spiritual. And it’s this new birthing, new energy coming in. To begin again.

Joffre McClung 57:07

You’re totally right. That’s why it was a child fox. Not an old fox, but a newborn, ready to go little fox. And I thought, “Well, all right. You’re so cute, I will let you in the house. Which I’m grateful for now.

Joffre McClung 57:21

I used to have dreams when the image will scare me. I used to have a lot of snake dreams. And I was afraid of snakes. I didn’t like it. But I understood that information the snake was giving me and then eventually I began to hold the snakes in the dream, which I was really grateful for. So I was happy it was a fox and not a snake.

Candice Wu 57:38

Oh, and I have one more question for you. I love that. This is a different one. In your group of friends or in your friendships, what role do you play?

Joffre McClung 57:50

I would say caretaker/almost a little bit mentor in a weird way.

Joffre McClung 57:58

I’ve always been a caretaker, cancer and at nature. So I do take care of people, I like to put the dip up, put the chips, and put the drinks, you know. I take care of people to make sure they have what they need.

Joffre McClung 58:10

But I would say I’m also somebody, when somebody is in deep trouble, I tend to be the one they call. That’s why I say mentor. I don’t know the right word. Mature mentors the right word. But, when they’re in trauma and they have drama or trauma. I tend to be the one they call. So whatever that energy is, I tend to be that one because I stay calm.

Joffre McClung 58:33

I think having been raised around a bully. I’ve learned to stay calm in the midst of a lot of drama around me.

Candice Wu 58:39

Yeah.

Joffre McClung 58:40

So I can stay calm and help them so I’m hoping I help people. And also I’m pretty fun. I do remind people the most important energy is play.

Candice Wu 58:46

Yeah.

Joffre McClung 58:47

Big on play.

Candice Wu 58:47

I hear that in you.

Joffre McClung 58:49

Play is so important. I cannot tell you. If you can’t play, you need to look at why you can’t play because you need to add play to your life, people. It’s important.

Candice Wu 58:58

You need to have play in your life, people.

Joffre McClung 59:00

You do. You don’t have life for no reason but to play.

Candice Wu 59:04

How are you playing now?

Joffre McClung 59:06

I swim in the pool that we have in the backyard. I swim and I play in the pool. I play with animals, the kitties, I did actually have a fox a year ago. I talk the fox, I talked to the birds, to the squirrels, to the little possums, little raccoons. I dance, I put music on and dance — I love to dance so I dance.

Joffre McClung 59:29

I just like to play in it when my friends will put on music and dance and laugh. I just like to have a good time. I like to play such a euphoric energy and such a creative energy. And it’s the energy of how we create our realities, when we’re in a place of joy. So I’m trying to move them more into play. And so I can create from that place of joy versus creating to keep the pain away. I don’t need to do that anymore.

Candice Wu 59:52

Yeah. Right.

Joffre McClung 59:54

I need to play and create with joy.

Candice Wu 59:57

Now, I have one last question for you. And it connects with play and it connects with roles.

Candice Wu 1:00:03

As an actress, what roles did you play in the past, typically? And what would you do now? Or, what would you be interested in now?

Joffre McClung 1:00:13

In the past, I tended to play probably firm women, strong women. I was taller than most of the women in my class. My voice can go deeper so I play strong, firm women, which I was very comfortable with. I’m very good. You know — I like that a lot.

Joffre McClung 1:00:28

I would say now, I would add a bit more. I wouldn’t say humor but a bit more. Like, what’s the word? The word’s right there. I can’t find it. But it’s a bit more sass to it than I used to be allowed to have. Because I was always the firm one, the strong one. I always say a bit more sass. A bit more irreverent than I used to play, because I was, like I said, always the strong one, the firm one, domineering kind of woman, career woman usually cast as strong. That’s a bit sassier. I play a bit more sass, bit more fun, or irreverent.

Candice Wu 1:01:08

Yeah.

Joffre McClung 1:01:09

A bit more rebelish because that’s really what my spirit is even though out with —

Candice Wu 1:01:15

I can hear it in you.

Candice Wu 1:01:16

You definitely have “strong firm woman” in you. But this rebel, fire, sass, and fun like, it’s like busting out of you.

Joffre McClung 1:01:27

Oh good.

Candice Wu 1:01:28

Just in case you weren’t sure —

Joffre McClung 1:01:34

So I would say definitely, a rebellious, sassy kind of woman.

Candice Wu 1:01:37

A bit of swagger.

Joffre McClung 1:01:39

Oh, big swagger.

Candice Wu 1:01:40

A big swagger?

Candice Wu 1:01:42

A kind swagger, but a swagger.

Candice Wu 1:01:44

Yeah. A loving one.

Joffre McClung 1:01:47

You got it. A loving swagger.

Candice Wu 1:01:50

We’ve claimed it now loving swagger —

Joffre McClung 1:01:53

Swagger with a big laugh. Yes, that’s what I would —

Candice Wu 1:01:57

That’ll be your description on the podcast episode.

Joffre McClung 1:02:01

Okay, there you go.

Candice Wu 1:02:04

Well, thank you so much, Joffre! This is lovely. Is there anything else you want to share before we go?

Joffre McClung 1:02:10

Just if you’re interested in any of my books or if you happen to be in the Dallas Fort Worth area, I’m doing some classes. You can check it out on my website. Other than that, just keep doing your inner work. It makes a big difference, people.

Candice Wu 1:02:23

Absolutely. Thank you so much. And where can people find you Joffre?

Joffre McClung 1:02:28

You can find me at joffremclung.com. You can also just type in, itsallaboutselflove.com and it’ll take you right to my website.

Candice Wu 1:02:40

Wonderful!

Joffre McClung 1:02:42

Thank you so much for having me! You are such a doll, I thoroughly enjoyed talking to you.

Candice Wu 1:02:46

Oh my gosh, I enjoyed this so much. And you are so much fun. And you provide so much wisdom. Thank you so much, Joffre. And all of the links that you shared, everything you’re sharing here will also include on the show notes. The episode is at CandiceWu.com/joffre. So all of that’s there for you. So you don’t have to go digging around as well. And I’m just so grateful you were here today. Thank you.

Joffre McClung 1:03:11

Thank you and have a great day!

Candice Wu 1:03:14

I hope you are just as energized as I am through this conversation, through learning about Joffre, her life and what she’s teaching. So many of the themes and ideas she’s talking about are the themes of the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 1:03:29

So if you’re interested in more, check her out at itsallaboutselflove.com and be sure to check out her experiential that’s coming out later this week. She’s going to offer a meditation and healing experience to support you in loving yourself.

Candice Wu 1:03:45

Be sure to check out more interviews other healing experiences, learning about embodiment and self-love on the Embody Podcast at CandiceWu.com/podcast.

Candice Wu 1:03:56

And you can stay informed about my workshops, retreats, experiences with horses and other podcast episodes through my newsletter, which goes out every two weeks. You can sign up at CandiceWu.com/embody.

Candice Wu 1:04:11

So just going off of the episode today, I leave you with the thoughts about where can you begin again in your life, or where is the new beginning and opening that’s already happening now.

Candice Wu 1:04:26

Thanks so much for joining us today and see you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Introduction to Joffre’s Experience

Candice Wu 0:00

When you don’t take up the practice of loving all the parts of you, the orphaned parts of you, the parts that are hidden, tucked away or abandoned, may shout to wake you up. Fortunately, here, Joffre McClung shows us how to love our orphan self.

She guides you in a giant hug to your orphan self. You’ll connect with your higher and divine loving self to support you in being in a safe place while entering the cave of your orphaned self to heal any wounds, restore wholeness, love, and worthiness.

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.

Full Podcast

You’ll find a full podcast with Joffre McClung, a spiritual personal growth author, motivational speaker and common sense advocate in her episode at CandiceWu.com/joffre.

In that episode, she shows us self-love with sass, swagger, and a big laugh. She talks about her story of how she had done everything to have a good life and hit rock bottom at age 29. And about how you can embrace your nemesis to love yourself more deeply. So without further ado, here’s Joffre, with her experience of embracing your orphaned self.

Let’s Begin With Joffre

Joffre McClung 2:00

I’m going to be taking you on a meditation to your safe loving space.

We’re going to invite in your higher self and then we’re going to meet your orphaned one, the forgotten one, the one you may have shunned.

Close your eyes and let’s take three deep long breaths with long exhale out.

You continue taking long deep breaths, relaxing your body and clearing your mind of all thoughts.

And then I’m going to be counting you down some steps and when we reach level 10, you’ll be in your safe, loving space. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.

Relax every muscle in your body.

Seven. Eight. Going deeper.

Nine. Ten.

Safe Space

Now I want you to look around and see your safe space around you. Perhaps its nature or perhaps it’s a building or a temple. Wherever it is, it is your safe space where you can do anything. Be anything. Express anything with harm to none.

If you’re outdoors, are there trees? Is it the mountains or beach? Or even a cave, wherever you need it to be, it is your safe space.

If it’s the building, is it soft, smooth, or is it rough? Are there windows?

Notice what’s around your safe space. Perhaps there’s a bridge nearby or perhaps a waterfall. Perhaps a larger river making wonderful sounds near you.

What’s under your feet? Is it grass? Or perhaps it’s stone, or brick, or gravel.

What sort of light is in your safe space? Or light coming through the tops of the trees bouncing around on the ground. Perhaps there’s moonlight. Perhaps it’s bright sunshine. Perhaps there’s candles if you’re in a building, wherever you are, it’s your safe space where no harm can come to you and only loving nurturing.

Add Loving Images

Now I want you to start adding loving images to the safe space. Images that invoke a feeling of loving your heart.

If you’re outdoors, perhaps it’s a tree that branches reach down and embrace you in a giant hug. Letting you know that you’re cared for and that you are mattered.

Perhaps it’s letting light coming through the trees dancing around you. Perhaps it’s flowers popping up around your feet, lifting you gently off the ground. Perhaps you lay down on the ground and you feel it rising lower like a pregnant mother’s belly, letting you know that you’re cared for and that you’re safe.

Whatever image it is, allow it to give you a feeling of love.

Perhaps it’s a pet that licks your face or purrs against your legs.

Perhaps it’s wild animals rolling around or lying across you, gently loving you, caring for you.

Perhaps it’s light coming through the windows in your building, dancing around you. Gold, white, pink, blue, silver lights dancing all around you, letting you know that you’re cared for and you’re seen.

Make this your safe, loving space. Perhaps it’s angels. Whatever you need to feel loved and cared for, is coming into your safe space now.

Golden Orb and Divine Love

And then I want you to look off into the distance, and I want you to see a golden orb moving towards you.

It’s beautiful, golden orb and it’s getting closer and closer, and you’re actually feeling a bit excited by seeing this golden orb, knowing it’s a gift for you, that it’s for you.

And then all of a sudden, the golden orb is in front of you, as large as you are.

Now I want you to reach your hand into that golden orb and I want you to take another hand inside that orb.

I want you to gently pull that hand outward and out of the orb steps your higher self this divine part of yourself that has all the knowledge and power of the Divine Love.

This higher self that has your back, that love’s you unconditionally, just the way you are.

Perhaps you see a being in front of you or perhaps you just get a feeling of this higher self. Perhaps it’s a gentle breeze across your cheek, that when it touches your cheek, you feel love, even for just a second.

Perhaps it’s a pair of eyes that look deep into your eyes twinkling with delight and joy to be looking into your eyes.

Perhaps you feel a gentle hand on your back. Perhaps you feel arms wrapped around you giving you a warm, deep, loving hug.

However you need this higher self to present itself to you, allow them to do it in a manner that’s appropriate for you, that feels loving and safe to you.

And then I want you to allow these higher self to take your hand and to gently start to nudge you down the left path of your safe, loving space.

Now it’s a path that perhaps you’ve never gone down before or perhaps you have gone down this path, but your higher self is taking you down this path that is still part of your loving space but to a different area.

So follow your higher self down this path and notice what’s under your feet, perhaps it’s changed, perhaps it’s stones now or brick, or gravel.

Your higher self looks at you, gently squeezes your hand, letting you know, you’re going to be safe wherever they take you.

And you trust this, you keep following your higher self and you climb to the top of the hill.

Entering the Cave

And when you reach the top of the hill, you look down the other side of the hill and you notice the cave entrance.

And again, your higher self squeezes your hand letting you know you can do this, they have your back and that you will be safe and cared for. For this cave is where your orphan is living and it’s time to meet this orphan. This one that you have forgotten, or perhaps shunned, or perhaps safely put away so we will not be hurt anymore.

So your higher self leads you down the hill towards the entrance to this cave. And now you find yourself at the entrance of the cave.

Now I want you to take a moment and I want you to listen to what’s coming out at the cave.

Are there any sounds? Perhaps there’s crying coming out of the cave. Perhaps there’s shouting and screaming. Maybe there’s a gentle whimpering coming out of the cave. Or, perhaps there’s no sound at all there’s just an emptiness.

And now your higher self will guide you into the cave to meet the appropriate orphan that’s been waiting to meet you, that needs to meet you, that needs to be heard, to be listened to, being allowed to tell their story, share their pain, so that you can bring them back to wholeness through compassionate understanding, and love.

And there are many rooms in this cave and you notice all the different rooms. But your higher self has one particular room they’re taking you to.

Find Your Orphan

So you follow your higher self to this room. Now as you enter the room, maybe slightly dark, but you can still see around the room. And I want you to look around the room and find your orphan.

Perhaps it’s dirty and filthy and uncared for living in the cave, crawled into a corner staring at you. Perhaps it has its back to you. Refusing to notice you. Refusing to acknowledge you. Perhaps it’s standing in the middle of the room shouting at you. Having a tantrum, full of anger and rage at you. Perhaps it’s huddled in a little corner in a fetal position unable to move.

However you need to see this orphan, allow it to be the way it needs to be.

This is the first line of compassion, understanding you’re going to practice with this orphan is allowing it to be the way it needs to be.

So I want you to take a moment and introduce yourself to this orphan in a gentle, caring way.

Let it know that you are its future self and that you’ve lived. And that now you’re here to help it live. And to let go of the past and to be made whole again.

Let it know that it no longer needs to be in charge, that it now has you and your higher self

Let it know you’re sorry that you have forgotten it or shunned it, or tucked it away to be safe, that you just didn’t know better and that now you do.

Perhaps you can gently touch your orphan or perhaps you can’t. Perhaps an orphan runs and crawls into your lap. Perhaps the orphan refuses to look at you.

Whatever way the orphan needs to be, allow it to be and keep letting it know that you love it and you care for it, and you will be back as many times as you need to allow it to tell its story, to gain trust in you, to share its pain with you. So that you can help it to be made whole again and that you will be back.

Thank Your Orphaned and Higher Self

Thank it for allowing you to visit it and be with it. And again apologize for not having cared for before now, to offer some love to this orphan. And then allow your higher self to offer love to this orphan in the manner it needs to receive its love.

Perhaps it runs to your higher self and allows it to be hugged. Or, perhaps your higher self puts a globe around the orphan to let it know it’s protected and safe from harm. Perhaps your higher self, put angels all around it, to let it know it’s cared for and nurtured.

Allow your higher self to offer love to this orphan now.

Thank your higher self for its love. And once again, thank your orphan for allowing it to visit Remind it you will be back. And it’s safe until you return because it has been the love of your higher self.

To take your higher self’s hand, allow your higher self to help you leave the cave now, knowing your orphan is safe and cared for until you return.

So the higher self leads you back to your safe loving space now.

Receive Love

Now it’s time to allow your higher self to offer love to you in the manner that you need to receive a lot.

Perhaps it is a gentle hug or perhaps it’s a hand upon your heart, allowing your higher self to take the pain you may have picked up from your orphan out of your heart.

In whatever manner you need it, allow your higher self to offer you some love and nurturing now.

And then thank your higher self for their love and let them know you’ll be back to be with them again. So they can teach you what love should be like and what love should feel like that’s perfect for you.

And then thank yourself. Take a moment and thank yourself for taking the time to go with it and to do this work.

By being self-appreciative and having self-gratitude, helps you grow in your sense of self-love.

Transitioning

Now I’m going to be counting you out of your safe loving space, but know that you’re coming out of it with a lot more than what you came into it with and that stuff, that good stuff that the higher self put into you through their love, will be with you throughout the day.

Ten. Nine, Eight, Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

Slowly open your eyes and know you began your orphan work and you will find your way back to self-love.

Have a joyful day.

Closing

Candice Wu 21:24

As you slowly make your way back to your space here today, the present moment, I hope you enjoyed this experiential with Joffre and be sure to check out her full episode at CandiceWu.com/joffre.

And feel free to connect with other healing experientials, guided meditations, and tools for self-love at CandiceWu.com/podcast.

See you next time on the Embody Podcast.