Podcast Episode 54: Alexa Fischer

Jean : Hi there.

Alison: Hello. Hello there… How are you doing?

Jean : I’m good. How are you doing?

Alison: I’m good. You went for a walk this morning?

Jean : I did, I went for about a 20 minute walk, which I usually do actually, in the morning and then I’ll do another one later.

Alison: Oh. That’s nice.

Jean : How was your morning?

Alison: I was running errands. And, um. Pretty good.

Jean : Nice.

Alison: A friend of mine who’s not been feeling well went into the hospital yesterday and is feeling much better.

Jean : Good. I was going to ask you about her.

Alison: So feeling so much better. So that’s a relief. Like it’s almost like you want to cry. Do you know what I mean? Like, oh, good. That that’s something good. And, um, I think it’s a beautiful day. Nice fall, beautiful, crisp day in

Jean : Southern California, and it could not be more beautiful right now.

Alison: Yeah, because we’re not we’re not sweating to bits.right?

Alison: And today you now, Lee Harris, who we interviewed a while ago… You went to a little gathering at his house and met our next guest.

Jean : Yes. Her name is Alexa Fisher, and I got to sit next to her, and she shared with me so many beautiful things, and one of them is this, um, The Power of Wishing, which we’re going to share with all of our listeners today.

Alison: I think that’s great to have that, because, you know, I mean, dandelions and shooting stars and eyelashes like I have wished on so many things my whole life. And I’m glad to know that someone, yeah, is talking about–.

Jean : I mean, wait till she gets into it. It is really powerful and there’s so much more depth to it than just, you know, blowing out candles on a cake, right?

Alison: Yeah. And right now, the way things are in the world… I think a lot of people have many wishes. Yeah, and so this will be beautiful to hear.

Jean : It will be. Yeah.

Alison: Here we go.

Jean : Okay.

Jean : oh Great. It’s lovely to see you again.

Alexa: Oh, it’s good to see you, too. It’s good to see you, too. Good. Good to see you both. And I’m so honored to be on your podcast.

Jean : Well, we are so honored to have you. And I wanted to introduce Alison since you’ve not met Alison.

Alison: Hello.

Alexa: Oh. I’m sorry. Go ahead. It’s lovely to meet you, Alison.

Alison: So nice to meet you. Really? Yeah. And I think the zoom stuff, because your house looks very peaceful. You would never know that there were teenagers lurking.

Alexa: Oh, you know what? My my teenagers are pretty… They’re really cool fellas, and and they’re very, very chill. And so our house tends to be pretty peaceful, to be honest. That’s right. That’s the way it is. Yeah.

Jean : Well, you and your husband are chill.

Alexa: Yes we are. So it sort of runs in the family or even our dog is chill. So it’s it’s good. It’s a good thing, you know, we like to have fun. I was not chill when my boys were little. I was just, oh, I think, oh, no, you weren’t at that. That dinner. Jean, I’m getting confused about which dinner I was at, but I was sharing it at dinner that if I could go back in time, and tell my younger mom self to just, like, seriously, let let it go, like, I just it was just too much for me as, like a, as a business person and a mom and trying to like, I all of a sudden had to be like Sporty Spice and throwing balls all the time. And I was just like a little bit overwhelmed. And then as I sort of matured into a different role and as my kids became far more independent, I was like, oh, so now they get to see me more as me. I’m sure my, my, my son, if he’s listening to me, would agree with that. But yeah, I wasn’t, I wasn’t always chill. Yeah. Yeah.

Jean : That’s so great.

Alison: Well, we would love. I love your story of how it all began for you.

Alexa: Mhm. Yeah.

Alison: Cause you’re very you’re into wishes and you’re into setting intentions and, um. And I love that you were like in the show bones.

Alexa: Yes. I was a professional actress as the first chapter of my career. And it just so happened that an epiphany happened on when I was shooting an episode of the TV show called, Bones. But it’s, um…. And I don’t know if we’re beginning…Are we beginning? Have we begun?

Alison: Yeah, we just sort of. It’s sort of a conversation, so…

Alexa: I love it. Let’s go..

Jean : Share that story because it’s wonderful.

Alexa: Oh, thanks. Well, I’ll tell you, you know, when people ask me about sort of my journey, there’s been very distinct chapters of my career. But the through line always for me has been the love of people. And that’s how I originally became interested in acting and how I ended up not only pursuing it in high school, and I was actually really lucky… I had great teachers, who really tapped into character and actually putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, which I am telling you, is such a potent lesson for the world that we’re in right now.

Alison: Yes.

Alexa: But my first, you know, I’m both a very artistic and sort of spiritual person, and I’m also a very practical person. So the idea of pursuing life as a professional actress inspired me to go get trained. And I ended up getting my undergraduate degree, um, at North Western University, and I ended up getting my MFA at Yale School of Drama.

Alison: Wow.

Alexa: And really, it was like, I am going to learn this. But what was so great and so fascinating in hindsight was that Yale, their philosophy of teaching, is anchored in this idea that a character has an objective. What do they want? Literally, this was the question that whether we were studying Shakespeare or Chekhov or Ibsen or anything, what does this character want? And zoom out, you know, many, many years later, I am asking the question to the world, what is your wish? What do you deeply, deeply want? And it’s when you can tap into that boy…Not just only drama ensues, but you really become activated. So cut to all of my, you know, like I’m going to be an actress. And so I graduated from Yale and I end up getting a show at the Mark Taper Forum here in Los Angeles. And I started to meet all my agents out here and really began the pursuit of life as a professional actress. Now, they didn’t care about how many accents I knew, or that I could do Shakespeare and Chekhov and all the things. I started making commercials and TV shows and all of like doing really the business of acting. But once I was inside the business, it became very apparent to me that the stars that everyone so admired, um, were really just people, just like everybody else, just like you and me. And some of them were fabulous, and some of them were absolutely not fabulous. And what pained me was that every day people would put themselves down ever so slightly, comparing themselves to these stars that they put on pedestals. And it literally pained my heart because once you’re inside the industry, you realize it’s all an illusion. And I found myself butting up against many of the clichés that people hear about the entertainment industry. And I also found myself, spending a lot of time waiting. Because if you’re on a set of a TV show or a film or even a commercial, you end up waiting, not wasting time…But there’s just a lot of downtime.

Alison: Yeah.

Alexa: And so I started to recognize this feeling of was I doing the work that I came here on the planet to do? As I waited hours and hours and hours and hours and as I interacted with people that I really felt were not my people, you know? So I’m on the set of the TV show bones, and I’m shooting this episode and I’m playing a lawyer, and something bad happens to my character, and we’re about 12 or 13 hours into the shoot, and I’m laying on the filthy floor of the L.A. times building where we were filming, and I was waiting for the lights and waiting for the sound and waiting for the other actors. And I had all this fake blood pouring out of my mouth as I’m laying there. And I had a total, like, panic attack that I was like, what the heck am I doing with my life? Like, this cannot be my measure of success, that this is what I’ve been working for… Because on the outside, it looked like everything was going great, but on the inside I knew that I wasn’t living in my truth. I knew that there was more for me, but I didn’t know what it was… So hence the panic. And in that moment on the floor, which is in the episode, so you actually can see this moment, uh, although I’m quite still because I’m supposed to be, like, dead or injured or whatever. Uh, I asked basically, God, I just asked the universe, oh my goodness, please give me a sign because I cannot be doing this with my time, my precious time on the planet, just not who I am. And I think many people at various moments in their lives can relate to that.

Jean : Yeah.

Alexa: And so I asked for a sign. That’s all I asked because I really freaking didn’t know. And I didn’t ask it in a nice way. I asked it in like a screaming kind of quietly in my mind way.. And two days later, I’m driving in the car, as one does in Los Angeles quite a bit, and I get a call out of the blue from my dear friend who I met on set. She was a makeup artist for a commercial that I shot and we hit it off. We were thick as thieves, and she had started a new business where she was taking predominantly entrepreneurial women and up leveling their look, their wardrobe, their makeup, and really helping them feel more empowered in their bodies. And she had a client that was going to lead a workshop, a conference for about 500 women, and she was flying in from Texas, and she needed a media coach, and I didn’t really know what that was, but I was like, yes, I it was a full body YES.

Alexa: And I said, I will do it. She’s like, you know, she’s flying out on this day, she needs a she needs help with this because she really wants to feel confident on stage, confident in her message, confident by really commanding that energy for for three for two and a half days. And I was like, I would love to. And then I get off the phone and I’m like, whoa, I have no clue how I am going to translate what I know as a performer and to making it a voice activated, body activated, heart activated lesson. How am I going to do this? But there is nothing like a deadline to get you to get your tush in gear. And I knew when she was coming and I had to put together a proposal with with cost associated with it, and I was like, what am I going to do? So I end up stepping back and I said, okay, I have a day with her. And for me, it always begins in your mind, the stories we tell ourselves is our end is where energy comes from, the mind and I’ve done this with characters… What is, where is their mindset? What are they thinking? So I said, okay, we’re going to break down the day into three parts your mind, your voice and your body. Let’s just we’ll just stick to those.

Alexa: And I’m going to be able to ask her a series of questions. I said, I’ll send her a questionnaire in advance. Uh, and, and and so I broke down this training and I said yes, I sent the proposal. She said yes and I had a deadline. And all of a sudden I thought, well, now it’s time to figure out what my methodology is and use an individual and imagine them as if they were a character. What do you want? How do you want to make that audience feel? What actions do you want them to take? This is a fundamental, just simple question. And then we say, where are you living in your body? What vocal habits do you have?… there’s a whole training that emerged and I mapped it out. And I actually think that the way that I figured out my methodology was I took a little video camera, i went to the garage above the room, above the garage of my parents house, because I had to get some space and some quiet, away from what I believe I did at the time, have very little kids, if not babies, and I set up a camera after I had worked on an outline and I began speaking because for me especially back then when I tried to put my hands down on a keyboard, it was a different energy flow. I got too much in my head.

Alison: Yep.

Alexa: When I spoke, it just came. So I recorded myself speaking and teaching these lessons simply as a way for me to really dive into what is the core of my teaching. So I would record myself. I would often screw up. I would record it again until I felt like, yeah, that’s that’s kind of the thing. And I kept it as a way for me to workshop the work that I was going to deliver to this client. So I end up working with this client. She has a great time that day. And she says, Alexa, would you consider being the emcee for my event? Because you would be a great emcee? And she said, and by the way, because you’re going to be in front of 500 female entrepreneurs, you might as well have a website so that they could hire you. And I was like, that sounds great. This was a long time ago when making websites was not like it was today. Right. Making websites was like programming things and and I, you know, and like photography. I mean, it just was like, okay, okay. Like universe was just pushing me and pushing me. So you look around and you’re like, who the heck do I know that can make a website and take some pictures? And what am I going to write on it? And P.S., I end up finding a dear friend of mine who I was in meditation class with…this lovely guy Jay. And we, you know, create a website, uh, quickly. And he says, you know, Alexa, you’ve got all these videos that you made with your classes. It’s kind of like, why don’t you offer this as a class, an online class way before people were doing online classes. And I’m like, sure, could you just help me figure that out? Yeah. So he says, no problem. He goes online and he discovers a brand new company called UDEMY, they had just launched and more or less, and it was basically at the time, dudes teaching tech like teaching tech coding classes. No,  personal development professional zero. None. Probably very few women. Maybe just me. But he said he said, you know, Alexa, I figured out a way to take their video player and embed it into your site. He said, the only thing is you’re going to have to also sell that class called, Speak Up Stand out your mind, your voice and your body. You’re going to have to sell it on their site too. I was like, fine, no problem. Cool, cool, cool. Just let’s just do it. Let’s just do it. So I have to fast forward now. That was many, many years ago. Um, my relationship with Udemy grew as they grew. They’re a huge company now. I have over a dozen classes with them and over almost 250,000 students on Udemy.

Alison: OH My gosh.

Jean :  Wow.

Alison: That’s so great.

Alexa: Bananas, bananas. And it’s still based on confidence and communication classes. Teaching people to connect with their own light. Something that back in the day before wishing I called your thousand watt presence. I was always teaching the same thing. Not not teaching people how to talk like me. That’s so boring. Teaching people how to connect to their heart. To connect to their heart. To ignite their own, you know, light inside of them. To overcome the fears that are imagined in their minds, to step into their bodies with strength and purpose and confidence and go for it. And I just provide this like easy, gentle, easy lessons to get people in motion. And and so I sort of grew with them. And that’s where we are right now which primed… So the first chapter of my career was as an actress. The second chapter was predominantly as a teacher, and I did corporate coaching and nonprofit coaching and and classes. And then one day, the day after, this is how it cued up… The day after I had given a workshop at, um, at a homeless women’s shelter. Actually, it wasn’t just a homeless women’s shelter. It was a program that was helping women transition out of homelessness. So it was temporary housing, and they asked me to come in and do a class, and I did a class with them about the power of your mind to anchor yourself in a, in a just slightly more positive story that it has to begin inside of them. And I taught them energy muscle testing, and I taught them about the power of intention.

Alexa: And anyway, we talked about this before, Wish Beads ( there’s no wish beads). And it primed the pump. That summer, my husband’s family, who’s Italian American, had taken the whole family. We went to Italy to celebrate my in-laws 50th wedding anniversary, and I was in Lucca and Lucca in Italy is known for paper, and there was an artisan in one of the piazzas in Lucca, and she had made these necklaces of rolled up paper and fabric. And she had, you know, she had glued them and and I had so much energy for me. I like, lost my mind. I bought like a dozen of them to give away as friends. I was so excited. And  my family actually was annoyed at how excited I was and I brought them home, but that had happened this summer. The two ideas came together in a moment, in the shower the next day, and I’m taking shower, and you know, my my friend Tamara calls the shower God’s phone booth because I don’t know if you get like,…

Alison: I agree. Yeah.

Alexa: Really good ideas in the shower. Uh, but I’m just taking a shower, no problem, and suddenly I heard the name, “wish beads” like that, and I saw an intention setting experience where you imagine your wish in vivid detail. You write it down on paper and you roll that paper up, cut it, you glue it, and cut it and create a paper bead bracelet with your that’s made of your wishes.. Now, I know your friends are only listening to this, but for you, we’re on zoom.

Alexa: And this is one that I’ve had for years… The red, because I offer a red pen is my handwriting. And so over time, it almost looks like it’s clay, but it’s made of paper, and the idea is like a vision board that you’re wearing on your wrist. And I saw all of this in literally a holographic split of a second moment. And I was like, what? And I thought for a second, that is a really cool idea. And then the practical part of my brain said, well, maybe the name, Wish Beads dot com is so obvious it couldn’t possibly be available. But, I said if it is available, that’s a sign. Yep, that’s a wink, you know.

Jean : That’s right.

Alexa: So I ran to the computer, and I looked it up with like a towel around my body and sure enough, WISHBEADS.COM was available and the trademark was available. And even as I say that to you right now, my whole body gets chills.

Alison: Me too. Yeah,

Jean : Because we are all given ideas and winks. We are receiving them. They’re not ours… We become just messengers of them. And that wink, that message can come in the form of like, oh, I should call my friend and you do it. I should, you know, smile at this person and do it. I should let this person, you know, just, you know, pass in front of me while I’m driving and do it. And when you cultivate this as a way of life and become an instrument of the listening, you use that as a powerful source of strength to, to to give yourself permission to keep going.

Alexa: Because let me tell you from the the download, which sounds like, you know, yay unicorns and rainbows, to the doing of it, was a crazy amount of hard work and perseverance and falling over and and and and triumph. It was all of it. So you have to you’re really saying yes to the ride and saying yes to the journey. And as we we started this podcast, I don’t know if you’re going to be including it. We joke about, you know, our busy lives and our kids and the the noise and the thing…. And and I was sharing how when I was a young mom and entrepreneur, it was a lot for me. And I had a lot more moments where I wanted to grip and and like, I don’t know how I’m going to do all this. And the lesson with all of the time that has passed is to do all of it. And now we have a lot more to do in the world, right? To do all of it with a lot more joy and love and grace and ease and and support support from the universe and get over ourselves to think, yeah, there’s some things you have to show up and do and figure out and be in service of, but let’s do it through love and curiosity and faith.

Alison: That is such a great origin story. And it’s so great.

Jean : And and you are the perfect ambassador for for that inner light, that confidence that and and, you know, tapping into your own light like, like you mentioned. And can you share, like some tips how how to tap into your light, like if you’re feeling very mental in your life.

Alexa: Yeah.

Jean : As you just said, I think so many of us feel like we like we’ll never catch up or, um, you know that noise you talk about Alexa… So if you could just share like 1 or 2 tips that can help me, alison, our listeners maybe just…

Alexa: You know, it’s so interesting that you asked that question because last night I was on a zoom with Marianne Williamson, and the woman who was moderating this conversation asked the exact same question. And Marianne Williamson surprised me so much with her answer, so I’m going to give her credit for this answer, but it moved me, she said, and I will repeat, we know exactly what it is we need to do, because nothing that I’m going to tell you is anything different. If you have heard the power of meditation, getting into nature, taking care of ourselves, being kind to ourselves with kind words, we have heard it all. She said the responsibility right now is to do it, is to actually tell yourself no more of the excuse train of why we don’t do these things, we must do them. Do them with love, but do them with commitment. And I thought, yeah, it’s kind of that thing where, you know, you’re again, I’m going to go back to kids, where your kids are (constantly) asking, you’re like, well… and they’re like going on– and then you get to a place where you’re like, no, just do it. Like, it’s too much for me to keep on reminding you over and over again to do it. I’m saying reminding to myself, just do it. And what’s funny is, I’ve been looking at the aspects of my life because I don’t teach unless I’m teaching myself first.

Alexa: And I look at the aspect of my life where I am a naturally a very fit looking person. This is just genetics, but I know that I procrastinate, I do not work out, I do not… This is the this is sort of my old story and it doesn’t make me feel strong, and I want to feel strong. I want to feel in my body. So I don’t need actually somebody to give me tips about how to do that. It’s very clear. Exercise. Do whatever you want. Just do it. And so earlier this month, I signed on for a zoom workout with someone that I really admire. Does it sound like fun to be on zoom? No, but he’s fun. And I’ve done, i just completed this morning five days in a row… I feel different, and it’s just because I got over myself and stopped listening to the voice that pulled me away from taking the walk, showing up, making time, doing the commitment, putting the shoes on, whatever. And I just did it. And I think that my advice to you, if there has been a inkling of something that you’re you’re ready to call in, whether it’s, you know, less sugar, more fiber or, you know, more time in nature? Yes. Now, now do it. That’s it. Just do it. Do it with love.

Alison: So what’s the… I love to do it with love. Let’s end it all with that. Um. let’s just say that.  Um. So then what, what’s a wish then? If, like what you’re saying, just do it. So what am I… What am i wishing for?

Alexa: Oh. So good. And then, having led thousands of people through wishing there is this moment of a blank face where, uh. where someone is just like. I have no idea what to wish for. Like, I have no idea. So here’s how I define wishing. A wishing is a message from your heart. It’s a seed that was planted in your soul before you even came here. It was an intention of what you came here to experience. Now, those wishes, those that blueprint for your life may contain and likely does contain also the hard lessons that we signed up for, because it’s in those, and I’m not saying, you know, that’s a watch what you wish for, which is such a weird saying… We’ll go into that later, but the idea that we came here with a wish, a desire for what we’re meant to experience, good and bad, because it will grow us and our growth, our spiritual evolution is the only thing that we get to take with us. That’s it.

Jean : Yeah. I love that you say that. That’s exactly what someone else… I don’t know who it was I was listening to, but, um, it was, that’s the most important thing is to work on yourself. Work on your consciousness, trust, you know, do the work, like you said, you know, do it.

Alexa: Yeah.

Jean : There’s no more, you know, magic spell.

Alexa: Yeah.

Jean : There’s no more…We all have heard it. No one else knows it… Well, if you stand on one leg and face south, right?

Alexa: Yeah, yeah. Like I’m not jumping in a cold plunge. It’s not for me, but it could be for somebody else. It’s not my jam. It’s okay. It doesn’t make me less of a person or I’m not a trend on trend, I don’t care. But there are other things that really do work for me. So go find your thing. But this wish is is is a way for you to come back in a childlike, easy, um, playful way, come back to your heart. And because this world has been, uh, collectively over millennia, a very harsh place, it’s understandable that precious humans have protected their hearts. Nobody wants heartache. Nobody wants to love so big that they’re going to experience loss. Nobody wants to put themselves out there, so they’re going to be judged. So we protect our hearts, but our wishes are inside. And so we have to find our way to soften that protective shell so we can access our own light. We can get in touch with our wish, and we can begin to open up that heart space and discover something new. And your wish doesn’t have to be like in the spiritual term, like your life’s purpose is called your dharma. People say, oh, I’m not ready for my life’s purpose. Maybe your wish is what you’re ready to call in today, this week. You know, how do you want the holidays to pan out for you this year? How do you want the people around you to feel? I just had a friend of mine text me, you know, 20 minutes ago that said she was going to do a holiday show at her house and different, you know, people were going to sell different things, including Wish Beads.

Alexa: And she has a beautiful candle line and we’re all going to have a great time. She just texted me and said, I don’t have the bandwidth for this. And I was like, yay! Let NO be an act of freedom. Absolutely. Say no. Sounds great. Yeah. And when we wish and we cultivate that, we’re also putting ourselves in a committed way because we’re expressing it. Now think about the phenomenon that is blowing out your candles and making a wish on your birthday. What a phenomenon that we do this gesture… Literally likely from the time we are born, you know, maybe our first birthday, we can’t really do it too well– but you know what I mean? Like your whole life, your whole family, collectively as, like, citizens across cultures, across countries– this is a phenomenon… So it’s astonishing. And yet we close our eyes, so they say, here’s your birthday candles make a wish. We close our eyes. We think for a split of a second what we want, and we take action. We blow it out with our Chi, with our energy. Now, if you took that moment, which could be quite powerful, and instead of making a wish, blowing out candles and never thinking about it again, what if you took that powerful collective gesture and you expanded it with intention? If you used it as a powerful practice to access your heart and see a roadmap to what you’re ready to create in your world. And that’s why not only  did I feel compelled to create a new awareness around the art of wishing and create intention setting jewelry that could capture the attention of people, because the paper, bead bracelet evolved into a jewelry line with a simplified process.

Alexa: But I wrote a book called Wish Work because, I believe that our work, our wishes, require attention. It’s not hard work. It’s playful work, but it’s transformative work because you begin to train yourself to cultivate a relationship with winks. And the winks are the connection and the language of the universe, or God or spirit or whatever you want to call it, the unknown that are actually encouraging us forward. When you cultivate a relationship with it, you actually begin working with winks and working with spirit to co-create because, and that’s when and you feel it, so if I’m at a dinner party and I’m sitting next to Jean and we share a conversation that’s actually Winks in motion, that’s that’s light play, and then you start to say, that’s cool, let’s talk about that. Let’s see how we can be better together. Let’s let’s cultivate this understanding of how we can show up now for ourselves, which then ripples out to everyone around us. And it’s not been easy for people to take “wishing” as a serious act of transformation. But the world is ready now. Yeah, the world is getting ready now because we’re seeing it’s up to us to not wonder what is it that’s going to change the world, or make my health, make me healthier or make me exercise more. Nope. It’s just you.

Jean : And and that’s what you and I were talking about at, you know, when we when we met. And I love that you liken it to the genie in the bottle, you say, yeah, you know, it’s not rubbing and waiting for the genie to, to grant you your wish. You are the genie.

Alexa: You are the genie. You are. Exactly. So what’s happened? You’re catching me at this intersection. I think I told you this, Jean,  where, you know, I was a teacher and I was my Alexa fisher.com world was really about public speaking and confidence building and classes and workshops and coaching and and then I created Wish Beads. And, you know, I’m really, you know, a lean operation. It looks like it’s a very big company, but it’s, you know, really me. And so I really shifted my energy over there. But it’s, it’s products… it’s a different, it’s a different deal, you know. And we had a lot of big success right out of the gate. And it became a different thing. And I let the teaching world still be over here..doing its thing, and just recently I have merged the two worlds in this interplay where I did create a free training program called You Are the Genie, and it is this idea of waking people up that they’re the one that they’ve been waiting for. They’re the one that they’ve been looking for. They’re the ones that can unlock their own magic by deciding you want to, by connecting with your heart, by taking action…the rubbing that, you’re the genie, you’re the lamp, you’re the one rubbing the lamp, you’re all of it. And when we can do it in a playful and light way, it’s just, you just see that it’s possible and it’s not bypassing pain at all. It’s just we have to upgrade the language and turn on the volume to love and commitment. Love and commitment and really have a hard look at the things in the world which are socially acceptable but are not helping. Write and say, okay, you know, if you want to wake up every day and use substances to help you get through the day at a certain point, that is just not going to help you anymore. So is there a possibility to tap into some other tools for you to see life with clarity and love, and get the support that you need to actually move you in a direction –if you find yourself in a toxic conversation, is there a way to be that voice that says, okay, is there another way that we can look at this? Everyone’s so trained to talk about the worst case scenario. What about the best case scenario?

Alison: Right.  Can I ask? I think what you’re saying is so powerful in terms of what’s powerful across the board, but it really resonates with me about, uh, self awareness or self motivation. But let’s say, your wish has to do with someone who’s ill or someone who’s facing a trauma. Like, right now, I feel like so many people are emotionally tired or spent or vulnerable. And what if your wish is something to do with that? Can you can you explain– sort of– because that feels a little bit different to me than sort of, I can do it thing… Do you know what I mean?

Alexa: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that we, especially as women, want to make other people’s wishes come true. Yeah. Um, especially as parents, we want to make our kids wishes come true. Um, I believe that your responsibility is to make your own wishes come true. And that doesn’t take anything away from sending love and light to people who need it. When we do it at the expense of ourselves, it’s the classic thing in the airplane. You have to put your mask on first or you’re good to no know one. And when we live in a and we deny ourselves the rest that we need, the care that we need, the love that we need, when we ride ourselves in the never enoughness of of it all, which has been programmed into, into many of us, we deny ourselves the ability to fill up our own heart and our own cups. And that’s really where the power is, because that’s where your fuel is. And I have watched people navigate through really intense challenges. Um, and when they when they leaned on love as a source of healing, their results were actually very, very good. Yeah. When they leaned on fear, um, as and looked for others to reinforce and validate their fear, it was just a harder journey. And so it is, there are parts of there are situations in which, um, I can look from a distance and intentionally send love.

Alexa: And I do it as a practice. And so in a way, that’s a wish. And I do have a wish for the world. I do have wishes for all kinds of things, but what I can take action on is the wish that’s inside of me… And sometimes I use my wishes because it’s never about the thing, it’s about the feeling. So when I guide people, the first step of my the way that I lead people through wishing is to go through a guided visualization. And in this moment you are seeing a moments coming from your heart, the light of your heart, where your wishes already come true. You’re living it, you’re feeling it, you’re seeing it… you’re activating your senses. You’re seeing something in the distance, and and if someone is not visual, sometimes it’s just in a feeling, they don’t see it. But afterwards, what’s happening,  you’re almost getting a pin in the map of the destiny of where you want to go. It’s a pin. And it’s filled with so many clues, so many clues. And when you come back and you begin to write it down, you’re you’re bringing it from the ether like a dream and you’re anchoring it in reality. Because much like a dream, you can forget about it. You know, you wake up in the morning, you’re like, I had the craziest dream. And you literally, like, four minutes later, can’t even recall anything, right? So with a wish, a powerful part is to write it down.

Alexa: Now, whether you’re putting it in a journal or you’re tucking it inside your wish beads, it is giving it a reality. Now, from that, from that vision, there are these clues that I talk about, and it’s not about seeing it and then feeling bad because you don’t have it yet. Whether you saw yourself, you know, on a vacation in Hawaii or you saw yourself out in nature in lavender fields and you’re like, oh no, I don’t live anywhere near lavender fields. No, you’re using those clues to say, wow, something in lavender my body needs how can I bring that to me right now? Inevitably the people who come back, and I do wish circles, and after the visualization, they literally look like they’ve taken a vacation because their nervous system, just with the power of their imagination, has created a totally different reality that now lives inside their nervous system. But then you can you can mine the vision itself for these clues, so that may look like in the case of the lavender fields, using lavender essential oil. Um, you know, it may be I invite people to look at what they’re wearing. What’s so funny in my visualizations, i’m always wearing a skirt, in real life, I never wear skirts, so what does that mean?

Alison: Yeah.

Alexa: What does that mean? I’m not projecting something…. You know we can have conscious wishes too, but I’m just talking about this accessing other aspects of our heart that we didn’t know that I want, I wanted. And so part of me taking these zoom exercise classes is for me to explore different aspects of my body and my expression. It’s related to the skirt.

Alison: Yeah.

Alexa: So it’s just curiosity, you know? And so when you get to that place also, it gives you more energy. Where do you take that energy, you use it back to the commitment part of like, what is it that you want to do? and If you’re feeling better, you’re probably going to go do it right?

Jean : That is so true.

Alison: That’s great.

Alexa: It’s so simple.. We don’t want to believe it. We think, no, I have to go to India and go find a guru. Nope. You’re the guru.

Alison: Right.

Alexa: I mean, go to India if you want to, but you’re the guru. You’re the one you’ve been waiting for. But the consciousness is ready to shed all of the weight of the divisiveness, the heaviness. We’re in a different place. And there are more people reacting to the election, uh, because we’re recording this right after the election, that I’m amazed how many people that I’ve talked to, that are like, you know, I’m not going to watch the news for a while. I’m going to step back. I said, wow, yes, yes, step back. Let’s get together and dance a little bit, shall we? Let’s let’s take the, let’s take the light and the love and put it back into the world. Let’s have a real beat.

Alison: Yeah. Yeah. And my father was a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, and I just, you know, I just said, I’m not going to watch the news. I am just going to… I’m taking a pottery class, I’ve never done. I’m taking tap lessons. I’m doing… I am just, yes, going to do anything that just seems like fun.

Alexa: And look at you. So look at you. You give yourself permission to embody joy.. So don’t you think that’s how you change the world?

Alison: Yes, I totally….

Alexa: Pottery…. Tap dancing?

Alison: Yes.

Alexa: Smiling.

Alison: Yes.

Alexa: Podcasting?

Jean : Yes.

Alexa: Change the world.

Alison: You got me out of my seat. I’m out… I’m up, I’m there, I’m doing it. Yeah.

Jean : Cause that’s what you know…That’s the gift… Why we came here is to give our joy and..

Alexa: To give our joy, yeah. And there is a there is a time for processing pain– absolutely, absolutely. Of course there is. And yet I have watched people go through some of the, you know, terribly traumatic, difficult things. And their heart has grown in size. They have grown because of it. So this is not about not feeling bad, or not processing, it is about really tapping into the power of heart. And may we all come home to our hearts so that we can have the creative solutions for climate, for peace, for, you know, for for nations coming together, for leadership. We need a whole new generation of leaders. So they’re around here right now. They’re they’re on the couch reading books right now. They’re out there somewhere. And we need to fuel them with love so that they can be the leaders that are going to bring a different kind of consciousness to the very, very real problems that are in the world. And so I’m done with thinking that pottery and tap dancing is frivolous. No it isn’t . That is the revolution, right?

Jean : I just got chills as you said that. And and the same for wishing like… Yeah, yeah, thank goodness Alexa, you didn’t think, oh, that is so stupid a wish..

Alison: A wish bead.

Jean : how ever do we do that?

Alison: You do that once a year… Once a year.

Jean : It’s so dumb…so frivious.

Alexa: Yeah. And believe me, people thought that. Believe me, people did.  Absolutely. Absolutely. And yet and yet, you know, I attribute my time as an actress because really, the business of being a professional actor or actress is you get rejected all the time. It’s part of if you’re lucky, because if you’re getting rejected all the time, it means you’re going on a ton of auditions. So lucky you and I remember building up this sense of like, next. Like the resiliency of putting yourself out there, being judged by what you look like, what you I mean, you cannot imagine the shenanigans that happened in my time as an actress full like unacceptable shenanigans. And and I’m grateful for it because when you’re in any kind of entrepreneur, and I’m sure you all have felt it in your lives when you put yourself out there and you’re like, yeah, I’m taking tap dancing, you know? And maybe people think it’s cool, but maybe there’s some people who are like, who do you think you are taking tap dancing? Probably not any of your friends, but I’m just using it as an example.

Alison:  yeah.

Alexa: We want to protect our hearts and we’re getting into a place where we’re like, you know what, I don’t care, and as a 52 year old woman now, the best part of getting older, and I can’t even imagine how I’m going to be when I’m 62 or 70 2 or 82. But when I entered my 50s, I found a freaking whole new level of freedom that the just, like, fantastic. And I get to I got to redefine the things that were my priorities and let shed some of those layers of caring. And I do attribute it to a lot of the, um, there’s the things that I’ve gone through and that I’ve faced and still did it anyway. Yeah, I did it anyway…You know?

Alison: I think it’s really interesting that people say, oh, pain or sorrow is really the way to growth. I agree with that. But I also agree that laughing and hugging and, um, I don’t know, eating a good meal with people you love is also a way to grow. I don’t think it’s like one or the other. And I think sometimes like for me, I totally agree, the older I have gotten, I’ll talk to any… Like I’ll walk up to people and be like, you are so pretty. You are so you have a light in you, you and people are always like, really? Thank you. And I said, yeah, you just right. Thanks. I’m so glad we met. Like and my kids are all like, oh come on, keep walking, mom. You know, and but it’s very… I totally agree. I’ve given up all, I’m me, i’m happy to be me, you know…. Yeah. And this is it. So.

Alexa: Yeah. And you can take that energy, that light, that joy, and also find the causes that spark your heart and put your energy there. And if you do it through love, that’s a far more powerful fuel for transformation than bitterness and despair and doom and gloom. It’s energy. And when you have your wishes, that spark of light, that candle and you have one, and then you have another one and you have another one, and you have another one, and then suddenly you light up the world. Yeah, that’s how it goes. That’s just how it that’s how it works. So I, I find that this post-election time is fascinating. Yeah. And,I think that we are evolving. There’s probably a cosmic thing that’s happening too, that makes a different type of energy more available. And I am here for all of it. You are all here for all of it. And maybe because we’ve been in the soup of this conversation prior, you know, for a while now, as I imagine both of you have been, that we actually have, I would say, a responsibility to to carry that light forward if it’s new for people. Yeah. And say, come on, come and play. Let’s hang out. Let’s, let’s let’s play. Yeah.

Alison:  You’re fantastic.

Alexa: I think you’re fantastic.

Jean : That’s why I was like let’s hang out in real life.

Alexa: Oh my God, it was so much energy.

Alison:  She was a ball of energy and joy, right?

Jean : She is. She just exudes, I think she exudes life.. like life force, Chi, Joy.

Alison: Very energetic. And, um, I very patient with all our, um, technical, technical problems. Yeah.

Jean : And she gets it.

Alison: She gets it, yeah. You know, and I just felt that she had so much, um, like, she just wanted you to feel, you got it. You can do it.

Jean : You are not lacking anything. And the wish within you is your desire, is your is linked to fulfilling your soul’s purpose. And so to tap into your inner light.,And and that’s where the power comes to to bring this desire, this wish into fruition.

Alison: Right. And I like the idea that it’s not a pleading a oh, like, it’s just sort of like, give it to me.

Jean : Not a beseeching. Right?

Alison: Yeah, right. I really just I enjoyed her so much. What would you, do you have specific wishes. Like do you have things that on your birthdays and things you wish for?

Jean : Um, I usually just, I usually wish for my family, well-being, health, wholeness, joy, you know? Yeah.

Alison: Yeah, I’m very similar. And also just on a, on a I sometimes just say like, let the world find healing. Let the world let the world find some sort of healing and contentment and peace. You know, seeing each other as each other. Yeah. You know.

Jean : Yeah…That’s beautiful, very lovely.

Alison: What a great time. Thank you so much for listening. And we hope that now you’re thinking of your wishes, and if you’re if you’re near a birthday, think of something good…start now.

Jean : And I have to say, she offers so many wonderful resources on her website. So please check her out. She’s amazing.

Alison: Yeah she is. Have a great day.

Jean : Bye.

Alison: Bye.