The Teeny Tiny Shifts and Changes in the Nervous System That Your Body Builds On — EP94

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.