allison keli ~ books & blogs

A Podcast You Want to Listen to

And no, not my own; however, soon I will be sharing a post {potentially seasonal posts at that} with a list of all sorts of things that I’m currently finding swell, and I will be sharing details about my own podcast at that point.

But! This was brought to my attention just last night that Jane Fonda had been interviewed for a brand new podcast! My nerdy self was so excited to hear about it.

I gave a listen this morning, and it will not disappoint.

Firstly, Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the one hosting this podcast and it’s called Wiser Than Me. Since my family is obsessed with Seinfeld, Louis-Dreyfus is a part of my regular lexicon. When I found out it was her podcast that was just a bonus.

The premise:

Julia Louis-Dreyfus wants to know why the hell we don’t hear more from older women, so she’s sitting down with Jane Fonda, Carol Burnett, Amy Tan, Diane von Furstenberg, Isabel Allende and Fran Lebowitz (and more!) to get schooled in how to live a full and meaningful life.

The premise is brilliant AF, and be warned, speaking of the ‘F’ in AF; she drops the ‘F’ bomb like it’s saving her life. It’s pretty funny. If you’re not a fan of curse words, I’d stay away from this one.

If you don’t care, GIVE A LISTEN. Not only is the premise worthy, not only is this whole thing timely (it just came out this month), she interviewed Jane Fonda! (And if you want to see my post regarding exercising with Ms. Fonda earlier this year, read about it here.)

I still haven’t watched Grace & Frankie, and now I want to read all of her damn books. (Thanks a lot, Julia.)

Jane discusses how she’s broken her own life into three acts: Act I is ages 0 – 30; Act II is 30 – 60; Act III is 60 – 90. She drops sage advice like nasal drip running from my allergic nose. Seriously. Of course she does. She’s eighty-freaking-five years old!

I listened while I walked, and had goose bumps for a lot of the walk. That’s how you know something is real; something is true.

Hear it here and then share it with every female you know, even the young ones.

Growing old ain’t for sissies.

I can’t wait to hear more of these podcasts. So far Isabel Allende and Fran Lebowitz have also been interviewed.

Spirit Worker Challenge

I took this particular challenge on at the same time that I did the Hay House 7-day Meditation Challenge, which you can read about sometime soon. (And I’ll edit this intro and link the posts together after it’s written.)

This challenge was only 4-days long with James Van Praagh, who has been around for eons, but I don’t think I’ve ever read any of his work or watched him speak.

Day One

Are you called to be a Spirit Worker?

Van Praagh defined the three types of spirit work he believes there are — healing, psychic and mediumship — and ran the listener through a body scan. He also gave us homework which was to choose a random word from any book and then write how you feel about it. (My word was affluent.)

He also suggested going around town and stopping to feel the energy of people you come across. Even at the store. This reminded me of an exercise my friends and I used to do when we were training to be Reiki practitioners.

Quotes and tidbits from today:

It’s easier to heal and hear in the stillness. Intuition is the soul’s voice. The soul is limitless. Get out of your head and into your heart. God go before me, and show me the way.

Day Two

Mediumship

Overall, the talk was a good jumpstart for those beginning to explore mediumship. Van Praagh spoke about the differences between being psychic and being a medium. He intoned short meditations to explore mediumship (no homework this time) and when I went to do them that night… I fell straight asleep!

One part rubbed my ego the wrong way. Van Praagh explained how some of his past clients had told him about clarity they had gained regarding their child’s death. (I’m going to assume this was over plenty of time, not like it was an immediate reaction to having Van Praagh connect to a loved one.) The clarity gleaned? The death and subsequent contact with the passed child was really a boost for their own spiritual awakening.

Trust me, I know it’s not intended to cheapen the loss of a child and at my core, I understand what he is saying, but as the current mother of a young child, and practitioner with several clients who have had their own children pass before them, I say AAAAACK. Consider me not wanting to be enlightened.

Quotes and tidbits from today:

Surrender yourself and relax your mind. Ask and receive from others. A Medium is in between frequencies of earth and spirit. Spirit will lower themselves to be with you as you raise yourself up. Love and fear are what exist; choose to live in love!

Day Three, Day Four

Healing > I do not have much commentary on this particular day other than to comment that it happened. I’m going to assume this particular path resonated least with me… since I’m already doing healing work.

How to Overcome Spiritual Blockages

He spoke with a few people live, for free, on a Zoom call. How cool is that?!

Quotes and tidbits:

God says yes, we say no. Don’t think, feel. Get out of your own way. Sit and be in the quiet. Allow things to happen. Don’t force it. One step at a time. Mediumship is not a rush, a run. Slowly develop it. Go from head to your heart. We tend to use stories to describe ourselves, but that’s just a story; not who you really are. Whatever people think of you is not your business; it’s theirs.

My husband eavesdropped on this call and gleaned some insight himself. Hard not to quietly giggle at that one. He’s not turned off to this type of living, but he doesn’t spend a lot of time in the realm, either.

General Homework: Write one page describing how you look at yourself, whatever comes to you. Let your soul speak to you. How you think you are. Another page called ‘fear’ and list the things you are afraid of; describe your limitations. Describe why you can’t do things. On the next page, write about ‘love’. Sit in quiet for three minutes then set intention to your heart. Write how you feel about love, kindness and compassion. Feel love and see where you resonate most.

He also gave us a mantra that he uses day and night. He says it three times each time, changing the vibration, changing the frequency in the energy field with his intention.

Healthy am I

Happy am I

Holy am I

And so it is

Final Thoughts

If you’re interested in a full course with James Van Praagh, Hay House is currently offering a huge discount until tonight at 11:59PM PST on April 17, 2023. Maybe they’ll extend it?

It sounds like the class is offered at least yearly. My guess is they offer this free seminar to garner interest, or as a platform to kick off the full course every year.

You can wait until later in the year/next year to see if it comes up again, or just sign up for the full course. If you take it, let us know how it goes!

Essential Oils + Serendipity

I use several brands of essential oils, but my favorite brand is Rocky Mountain Oils. I started using them around the time of their merger with Native American Nutritionals. (I think that’s what the other company was called! It’s been so long.)

(Unrelated, it’s hard to focus as my cat, Pilot, is staring at me and rolling all around me.)

In January of this year, I got a chat sent to me from Rocky Mountain Oils via Instagram. While I know I’m literally in the business of love, trust, acceptance and all that, I’m quite terribly skeptical, slightly cynical, and not very trusting. (Look, I’m a WIP like anyone else!!!)

This “passion project” of one of the owners of the oil company was presented to me as a Zoom interview by an assistant. The assistant would interview me and highlight what I’m doing in my tiny little corner of the world.

Did I mention how much I love their oils? I use their chakra oils weekly on myself and incorporate them into my practice pretty often. Also, I assure you, I’m not making any money if you click on the link or order from them. I’m just sharing what’s swell.

At any rate, the interview turned out to be a real thing. I was a nervous wreck. I’d seen some of their other videos (and by the way, I intend to watch as many as possible). There are SO many fascinating women out there doing their thing, their wonderful, amazing thing–and I find them all so inspirational. This passion project is such a lovely idea.

Prior to the interview, I had prepared some information which was going to last about 5 minutes. Only when I got on the call, I was told that interest was dropping off at the 2-3 minute mark and I should try to keep it that short.

I blubbered through the darn thing trying to figure out what I wanted to touch upon. A great lesson in adaptation. But hey, all the same, I put myself out there.

I had truly just asked the Universe how I was supposed to have these kismet moments, serendipitous happenings anymore?

I rarely leave the house!

And the Universe said, you can still sync up, you can still get caught in the flow… through Instagram.🤪🤪🤪🤪

You can watch the madness here.

Disrupt the System vs Drain the Swamp

Let me precede my thoughts about semantics with this public service announcement:

THIS IS NOT A POLITICAL POST … SO PLEASE DON’T GO THERE.

Anyone who has been on this planet within the past few millennia certainly knows President Trump’s call to action with the phrase “drain the swamp“.

But do you know about Marianne Williamson, who is running for President of the U.S. again, do you know about her message?

Disrupt the System

If you’ve caught this post, you probably have heard about Marianne. Maybe you’ve heard about her via Commune. Or maybe you’ve heard about A Course in Miracles, but don’t know that Marianne Williamson is connected to its teachings.

My point is–if you’ve been around, you, at the very least, vaguely know about her.

But if you’ve never heard of her, don’t go thinking it’s necessarily important to know her to understand this post. But one of her calls to action is to ‘disrupt the system’.

For the intent of this post, I’d like to discuss these words s vs Trump’s ‘drain the swamp’.

I’m guessing both more or less mean the same thing, yet one seems more aggressive and more destructive, while the other has an air of optimism. Yes, while this is my filter assessing such, you can’t deny dictionary definitions.

According to Webster, ‘drain’ means “to cause the gradual disappearance of”.

‘Disrupt’ means “to break apart”.

‘System’ means all sorts of things, but for these purposes we’ll say “a form of social, economic, or political organization or practice”.

And ‘swamp’ means “a difficult or troublesome situation or object”.

So Williamson’s message is basically suggesting we break apart the big daddy of social, economic, political practices and/or organizations. (AKA: the government.)

Trump’s message says to destroy a difficult and troublesome situation/object. (AKA: the government).

Call me crazy, but semantically speaking, Williamson is onto something. If you can break something apart, you can reform it better. If you totally destroy something, there is nothing left to work with.

Semantics matter. Semantics, intention. It’s sort of everything.

Again, this isn’t meant to be political, and I’m not endorsing anyone or anything. I’m just explaining how I came to the conclusion that one set of words makes me feel a hell of a lot better than another set of words.

And I think that’s pretty damn swell.

My Month with Jane

Please note: This has nothing to do with Grace and Frankie or Jane’s latest cancer diagnosis and subsequent remission; this conversation organically, and very much at random, occurred one day while my mom was sitting on my couch. From there, I realized Jane was very much alive, well, and still in the news. It was also a great reminder that I need to watch Grace and Frankie.

Ok–so it’s currently the middle of January and I’ve had this very random, very hilarious idea. It has just occurred to me that Jane Fonda and her workouts were almost definitely a baby-sitter for me as a child. After my mom and I started talking about the workout videos, she pulled one of our favorites up on YouTube.

Jane Fonda’s New Workout from 1985 is still around for rollicking fun via Amazon, or you can watch it with interruptions on YouTube.

And you guessed it. I have decided to spend a month with Jane.

These tidbits of advice, the intonations, oh my goodness, I’m laughing so hard here. The vibrant colors! The teased hair! The half shirts, tight shorts, leg warmers! My mom and I remember this stuff VERBATIM. We are honestly quoting from the video!

The Plan: weekly workouts with Jane starting at the end of January/early February. A write-up about each half hour spent with her.

I’m terribly excited.

Week One

Not only did I have the muscle memory for the leaning, swaying and kicking, but the music was pumping through my head like it never left. My cats looked at me like I was insane.

I pretty much kept up with the short workout, which is amazing considering I’m fairly out of shape and 9,000 years old now. As a lanky 7 – 12 year old kid, I had struggled tagging along with these athletic geniuses. I definitely felt more secure and stable in my body as I hoe-downed, Rover’s Revenged and curled my tail up like a scorpion… At least something positive has come with 30+ additional years!

But I’m not going to lie–afterwards, I felt shaky as hell!

Week Two

Um, yeah. So while I only did that one workout last week with our dear Jane, it STAYED with me for about half a week. No kidding. My calves, my obliques, my arms even. My God, had she let me rest my arms at all? It was crazy. I couldn’t believe how sore I was.

This time when I sang along with Leslie Lilien (try googling her; she’s done an excellent job at hiding) and I “did it”, I was reminded of the exercises I didn’t like as a child; they’re still hard for me to do now. While, as a massage therapist, I can appreciate the use of tackling inner thigh strength as part of a whole-leg regimen, regular me keeps questioning in my head about Jane’s intentions.

I don’t need that muscle strengthened, that inner leg lift is an impossible task! Why the hell are we doing it? On both sides?! Jane, Jane, Jane. Shaking my damn head.

Overall, though, this exercise routine really is affecting my WHOLE body! I’m running in circles, squatting; I’m crunching and scrunching, popping every vertebrae of my C-spine for a warm-up.

But–what’s with that the calf stretch at the beginning of the session? My massage therapist brain is cringing. This body is far too cold to try and lengthen my achilles tendon and double-headed gastroc at this point in the workout. I’m afraid my legs are going to snap and that will be the end of me and Jane.

Body, warm up fast!

If I didn’t know the routine from years of practice as a chid, I wouldn’t be cued in enough about what to do. As someone who has a hard time following routines, even WITH instructions, this would generally be extremely frustrating.

However. This warm-up, aerobics and leg lifting is a part of my DNA so I could do it with my eyes shut. Luckily, terrycloth headbands are not a part of my DNA, but I’m not gonna lie–I do have a pair of black leg warmers at the ready.

Week Three

Ok — I totally missed this week. It was my birthday week and chaotic. Sorry, Jane.

Week Four

Can I tell you how much I’ve fallen in love with this workout? I’m not in pain afterwards at all like I first was, and man, I still dislike some of the things she’s doing with my inner thighs and lack of stamina is a real_thing, but like I said before: This workout is moving and strengthening so many different parts of my body that I feel SEEN and HEARD as an individual.

Good Lord, Jane. Thank you for seeing and hearing me.

Final Thoughts

There are soooo many workout videos available via streaming these days, it’s nice to know you can go back home and still get a full body workout. I have high hopes I will fit in some more of her workouts here in the near future. Maybe I can even conquer one of her hour long sessions?

Upon writing this post, I saw that other people had been doing Jane’s videos over the past few years or so and writing about it. It brings me endless joy to know that I’m not the only one out there who is, even after all this time, bringing Jane into my living room.