allison keli – Page 2 – Swellness Vibes

The Telepathy Tapes – A Podcast of Hope

For months, I have contemplated how to start this post.

Fellow Reiki pal, Leslie, and I (via Woo Woo BBQ) even attempted to record our own podcast episodes about it, but kept getting tripped up. It’s not because it’s impossible to believe; it’s not because it’s too easy to be skeptical and ignore. Rather, it’s just… so much.

If you haven’t yet heard about The Telepathy Tapes, it’s probably because you aren’t heavily affiliated with either the autistic or the woo-woo world. My guess, though, as these two worlds continue to collide, more and more mainstream arenas will begin to take note. One side will try to heavily discredit what’s been going on. The other side may–hopefully–keep walking that thin line between falling over an imaginary crevasse that divides what we know, and that which we suspect.

The world is not as it seems.

If we teeter into the chasm, though, maybe, just maybe, we will be okay.

The Telepathy Tapes, at its core, is about non-speaking autistic people, their families and how they live within the world. It also includes interviews with teachers and their students, scientists and skeptics.

While the autistic spectrum touches my family at a very superficial level, there are those whose bodies are so at odds with their spirits, they cannot communicate.

Except, they can. Paradigms be damned. As it turns out, the veil appears to be thin for those who don’t have full access to their bodies. Finding new ways to communicate, and heal, and learn, these individuals appear to have easier entry into worlds some neurotypical people can’t even begin to fathom.

Ky Dickens, who is at the helm of the podcast, is also a documentary filmmaker. She is creating a film about the people of the podcast. (Side note–I don’t know which came first, the podcast or the film.) As she began to know the people she was interviewing, she was shocked to uncover an intricate web of inexplicable phenomena.

She reaffirms what I’ve believed for a long time. These psy-phenomena of worlds unseen are considered nothing more than a hoax because science is lacking in its ability to study and explain them. (Hello, funding; hello, stigma!)

Not because they don’t exist. Not because they aren’t real, or rather, real enough.

Science is made to study the material world. When things become too abstract, it seems like it’s impossible to measure them. Yet, we’ve all felt love. How do you measure that?

Can you measure thinking about a friend and then her calling you after you thought about her? What came first? Her calling you, or your thought?

If you know me, you know I adore science. I love learning why and how things work. This does not take the magic away, but rather, amplifies the wonder. Science can be hard, and complicated, rather impossible for me to make sense. It can also be very simple.

And of course, science, like anything else, can be weaponized.

Our autistic friends have personalities, dreams and fears like the rest of us. Yes, they can sometimes communicate to us by actions or through a method called spelling. Rather than using science to disprove that a nonverbal person is able to communicate through typing with help (and some of these people have learned how to do it without assistance), why don’t we find ways to measure the telepathic gifts they’ve developed in place of speech?

And there’re a lot of woo woo things going on here. We’re talking conversing across space, and maybe even time. We’re talking about reading people’s minds; we’re talking about healing.

Things this podcast describes sure sound an awful lot like the energy healing portion of my business. Hi there, Reiki. Heya to my tagline of being more than just a massage…an experience, if you will.

There are even animal episodes which will give you paws (I love a good pun!) about every creature you’ve encountered. You’ll discover love stories and transcendence. You’ll learn about death, about religious ideas. You will shed some tears.

You will feel hope.

I highly recommend giving a listen to the podcast, as well as its sister work, The Talk Tracks. The second part of the podcast seems to be less about the specific people covered in The Telepathy Tapes, and more generalized about the topics that were brought up.

The messages are the same, though–even though science can’t prove it, we all have seen and felt things we can’t explain. The nonverbal autistic population appears to have been grossly misunderstood and are more adept at these gifts than speakers.

Love, and hope, are what matter.

We are all connected.

The Influence of Children’s Books on My Life, Reiki & Writing

One of my favorite classes in college was children’s literature. I really had no idea why this was the case, but upon starting to re-read The Time Quintet by Madeline L’engle, I can see how books I read as child not only shaped how I write as an adult, but also my process of thought, and thus, my life. (As an aside here–I’d also like to interject that Arthurian mystery was fairly intriguing to me as a child, too, and Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series certainly shaped me as well.)

Why was I so open to even try Reiki, let alone practice it? For those who don’t know what Reiki is, firstly, it doesn’t have to be capitalized. I just always do it. Secondly, it’s either a) a part of the measurable energy force within and outside of ourselves or b) the practice of Reiki, a hands-on or distance modality often used by holistic health and alternative health providers. You can visit Reiki.org for more information, or here from Nani Lotus Bodywork.

There’s traditional training of Reiki, which is Usui Reiki, and considered the original means to train. But now there are so many other types of Reiki out there, from one I’ve always wanted to try, Lubeck’s Rainbow Reiki, to Rand’s Holy Fire Reiki, to ones I’ve never even heard of. Sekhem Reiki? Lightarian Reiki? What?! It gets confusing.

However, I’m assuming each of these different types all have a form of distance Reiki. Distance Reiki, from my own personal training and knowledge, can move beyond space and time. We may not understand it with our limited thinking, but I’ve seen and felt it work. It just is.

Logically, you can think back to the past while you are in the present. You can also assume things about the future while you are in the present. Thus, time is not linear, even to the human brain and body, because you can think about things and have a visceral reaction in the present.

Here’s where it gets fascinating in the context of my own life. I read these books as a child, and somewhere within me, I registered the notion that light, and dark, needed to strike a balance to both exist. Without one, there is not the other.

I registered that extrasensory perception (ESP), to some extent, must certainly be real. Not because it’s this magical concept and wishful thinking can conjure reality, but because there are so many inexplicable things in life. Déjà vu, for one; thinking about someone and them calling you on the phone, for another; gleaning messages from random things that you see at that perfect moment; or odd shared dreams, weird shared experiences.

I simply call it being in the flow.

Science strives to define these inexplicable experiences, and oftentimes it does. Science is magic; magic is science. Humanity has been thought provoked for only so long, right, so how could we possibly have scientifically proven all of the magic that exists?

L’engle describes kything, this process of “going within” others and their experiences, connecting even more than regular ol’ ESP. The way she writes about it made me realize, oh my God, this is Distance Reiki. (Another aside: this reminded me of when I was personally learning about Reiki–during the last season of the TV show LOST. And guess what? We chalked up the light at the center of the island as Reiki as well!)

All of these pop culture references, all of these hidden books, or even books in plain sight. Beyond our wildest dreams is the true reality; our limitations taking us only so far. I understand why reading is considered dangerous and wilding. It truly can open your mind like a parachute.

I have no idea what drew me to these books as a child, but I can clearly see how the magic of them shaped my reality, and even my own writing! I imagine that when The Light Thrower series is said and done, my own themes will continue to explore good, and bad, light, and dark, and the delicate balance of the music of existence. And I imagine, as I continue to practice and teach Reiki, that more and more experiences from my childhood will continue to support the expanding reality of my today.

Thoughts on Panic Attacks, Burnout & Being Death Defying Amongst Wellness Providers

Let’s be brutally honest here. Wellness providers at large? Yoga instructors and the like? I’m going to say something scandalous. Here it is: these people, they are human. They are not death defying. They get burnout. They have panic attacks. They won’t always practice what they preach.

At this point, I have followed Yoga with Adriene for a really long time. Not since the very beginning, but pretty darn close to it. I’ve welcomed Adriene and her specific brand of at-home yoga with open arms, finally curating something that felt like a very-real yoga practice due to the videos she offers on YouTube. Over time, Adriene has become fairly famous, having carved out a niche in the wellness industry.

In the recent edition of Women’s Health magazine, Adriene spoke about her experience with burnout, a largely taboo topic for those in this industry. Whether only put on by others, or by ourselves, the stigma of burnout or, for even a short period of time, not applying what we preach, is very real. We are supposed to be mentally strong, these generally guiding beacons of health as we help steer others into who they were meant to be.

I’m not going to call it an illusion, but if a spade’s a spade…

I remember a woman who was vegan, fit, healthy as can be, got sick from cancer and died from it. I also remember a nasty comment from another woman who was almost downright smug about this woman’s death. She had poo-pooed her attempts at arresting death by living well. She was basically saying, “See? You’re no better than the rest of us. You still died.”

But I don’t believe that people who try to live well do it because they want to cheat death. I think, and maybe those in this industry more so than some others, we recognize that death is a very active part of life, for better or worse. Death cannot be cheated, but improved living can be acquired… with forgiveness, kindness, and perseverance. The right kind of perserveance, that is, that doesn’t lead to burnout.

There will be the charlatans who act elevated above all others with their knowingness. But most of the people in the wellness industry, in the care provider realm, most that I have met are humble and acutely aware of their faults and flaws.

As those in the limelight become more vocal to the masses about their own struggles, then maybe a more generalized forgiveness for being human can become normalized, and accepted. Wellness industry leaders will tell you they’ve had plenty of failures, that they too have lapses in their own ability to walk the walk.

This is the thing, see, and I’m repeating myself to make a point. They’re human. This is how humans are. We struggle, and especially if we have the right support system, we will try to do better. If we fail, we will get up and try again. We will have moments of not walking the walk, not talking the talk. It’s normal. It’s human.

In the Women’s Health article, Adriene is very personal about what led her to have panic attacks. She notes that when she had her first one, she had gone to a hospital because she wasn’t sure what was happening. This happened to Adriene, the Queen of Calm. Since the terms burnout, panic attacks and anxiety aren’t supposed to apply to people like her, she didn’t even recognize that that’s what it was.

I too can personally attest to this as well, having a similar bout of panic attacks in my own past. If we don’t get better at recognizing the need to support our nervous systems, more and more Adrienes will continue to fall off of these pedestals, of, frankly, non-reality.

We all need to recognize when we aren’t taking enough care of ourselves. This means daily check-ins, permission to fail, permission to spend a day in bed, permission to vacation as Adriene says in the article. Did I mention permission to FAIL?

EVEN the caregivers. EVEN the yogis. EVEN the bodyworkers, the meditators. Not just even–especially so.

Adriene’s bravery sharing her story is a great step for all of us. Nobody is above failure, burning out, or having panic attacks, even the so-called-super-healthy who look like they have their sh*t together. Nobody is above death. But we all have the right to live life without the stigma of it being a big deal when we, too, fail. When we too, fall. When we, too, have panic attacks. Just like the Queen of Calm.

Eczema, Schmeczema

I have officially been diagnosed with eczema, and as I think back over my life, of course this crud has been eczema. Every stinking winter it bothers me. While I have other skin issues–potentially the you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me-that’s-a-thing cholingeric urticaria–these little unpleasant bumps of itch and burn have been a part of me for a while.

They’ve also been a part of my kid’s life for forever. We call his Dragon Skin, a name that evokes strength and purpose. But frankly, this most important organ of his, those burning red winter hands, really bother me. I’m feeling like it’s not a great sign to have the skin look and feel that way. Which, when he was a wee one, I played around with ingredients to create his own ointment.

And now, rather than putting on pure shea butter out of laziness for myself, or looking for my kid’s old eczema creams, I have decided to play and make a new blend!

The inter-webs proclaim that colloidal oats are a gift from the Gods–and I remember the kid’s oat baths–so I looked into it. Why does it work? How do I make it? Can I make it?

Gift from the Gods

Healthline says that the fine powder of oats–which is what colloidal oats are (not to be confused with oat flour)–is made up of minerals, proteins, vitamins, fats and other power-packing nutrients that is valuable for skin. With antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, it’s not surprising that studies support the benefits of these oats, nor that the FDA approved colloidal oatmeal as a skin protectant in 2003.

In layman’s terms, it softens the skin, soothes the itch, and helps create a protective barrier to that which may trigger an eczema assault. I can think of other things that create a barrier, like coconut oil, honey, aloe vera, castor oil, and jojoba, which I know from previous usage is easily one of the best oils for the human skin. The internet says things like calendula (oh yeah, I remember that), lavender, chamomile and evening primrose are good for the skin. Wait, what? Isn’t evening primrose for peri-menopause, too? Sure thing.

I inadvertently created a scrub along with an ointment. Do not eat the mixtures, no matter how tempting.

To Make Colloidal Oats

Grind up oats. If it mixes in with water turning it yellow, you’ve succeeded. It’s that easy.

Eczema Scrub

1 tbsp of colloidal oats
1 tbsp of coconut oil – not melted
1 tsp aloe vera gel

Mix it all together. Cover with plastic wrap. To use: Wash/Rinse hands as normal with soap. Using a small amount of the scrub, rub it onto your hands. Rinse off; pat dry. Your hands should be left oily. I would have added more aloe had my plant been more productive.

Do not eat! No matter how yummy it smells.

Eczema Ointment

1 tbsp of colloidal oats
1 tbsp of melted coconut oil
1 tbsp of melted shea butter
1 tbsp of honey
1 tsp of aloe vera gel
30 drops lavender oil
10 drops of evening primrose oil

Melt coconut oil and shea butter. Add the oats, honey, aloe vera. Again, I would have added more aloe had my plant cooperated. Once fully mixed together and slightly lumpy, add the lavender and primrose oil. Keep mixing until it is the consistency you like. Put in the fridge. Let harden. Now, after this, you can leave it out at room temperature, but I prefer the cold temp, so I leave it in the fridge. Otherwise it gets too melt-y for me.

Thoughts

I wasn’t a fan of the primrose oil by itself, but in the mixture, it was fine.

I have mixed feelings on the oats themselves–a little messy. I would grind them up even more next time I make this, or hell, maybe just use an oat oil to replace the oats for the ointment. I’m sure it exists. For the scrub, I would leave it.

I also have mixed feelings about the honey because, well, it’s so sticky. Just be prepared to be sticky, I guess, is the answer.

Next time I make some I will use other ingredients–like jojoba, castor oil, etc. Since eczema is an unending fiend in my life, I imagine I will have yearly attempts at creating the best concoction. If not for me, then for the Dragon Skin Kid.

Does this meet the swellness check? Absolutely. Our skin started healing as soon as we started to use this stuff, and it was certainly less itchy.

On Enlightenment, On Spirituality

I recently listened to a podcast which offered the idea that not everybody is meant to be on the same path here on earth. That notion is never more evident than when you think about all of the religions and spiritual practices circling around with us on the planet.

Sort of a ‘duh’ moment.

I’ve had friends tell me their goals are to become enlightened. Truth be told, I’m sure actual enlightenment is as varied as individuals are.

I’m in the very human realm of survival, sustainability, learning as much as I can, and attempting to revel in the abundance that I truly believe exists. If enlightenment happens along the way, I suppose I’d be open to it.

But to think that everyone here needs to be enlightened to elevate existence from 3D to 4D may just be naive. What if it’s truly more simple in its complexity?

Britannica.com says enlightenment is:

1 : the state of having knowledge or understanding * the search for spiritual enlightenment * the act of giving someone knowledge or understanding

3 Buddhism : a final spiritual state marked by the absence of desire or suffering

We’re all different. We’re all connected. We’re all connected to Earth and its many inhabitants whether we think about it, explore it, dissolve from it, or not.

This idea that suggests that we don’t all need to be serving the same purpose sits well with me. I’m finding solace in the belief that not only is enlightenment not the goal for everyone, it never needed to be, anyway! Balance, right?

There are many ways to experience spirituality. Let’s let Oxford Languages via Google define it:

the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.

Spirituality doesn’t need to mean seeking or attaining enlightenment. And not everyone needs to be spiritual in order to serve a purpose here on Earth.

It’s all kind of refreshing.