What is the connection between consciousness, energy, and blood? How deep does the connection go between the physiological and the psychological? Is talk therapy not be enough in the long run when achieving holistic recovery and long-term healing?

MEET DR. ALISON KAY

Dr. Alison J Kay has secrets no one else uses to upgrade, inspire & disrupt old paradigms within her community & the collective. She is an Award-Winning, #1 International. Best Selling Author and the Founder of the Vibrational UPgrade™ System. She is an experienced subtle energies practitioner and natural healer with a holistic approach towards helping others thrive in mind, body, and spirit. This is reinforced by her ten years in Asia studying subtle energies & ancient wisdom. With 20+ years working in & teaching Yoga, Meditation, Energy Medicine, MindBody Fitness, Longevity, and Holistic Health with a specialized focus on the Chakra System, Dr. Alison brings a unique perspective that facilitates massive change.

Dr. Alison's mission is to support the next higher evolution of the collective & create change for the health of this planet and those who are ready to unleash every part of the magic within them. Backed by the potency of her Vibrational UPgrade™ container, she hosts a wildly popular Activate Your Magic monthly program synced with the potency and support of the moon. and offering Group Clearings & Activations. Her signature program, Magic, Manifestation & Money Flows facilitates massive money, health, spiritual & life-enhancing shifts to 100's of clients worldwide. While her advanced clients are supported by her Vibrational Upgrade™ Mastermind Group, Certification Program & International Retreat Programs. You don’t need to believe in this in order for it to work… that’s the beauty of what Dr. Alison accesses – as soon as you experience her work, you will feel the shift within you.

Visit her website. Connect on Facebook and Instagram.

Book a 45 min call with one of Dr. Kay's team members.

IN THIS PODCAST:

• Where energy goes, blood follows
• How talk therapy can cement trauma
• Intuition
• Advice to listeners 

WHERE ENERGY GOES, BLOOD FOLLOWS

If where vital life force energy [energy] goes, blood follows, meaning where energy goes then the physical manifests in that form, in that place, and for anything to exist in matter is has to first exist in energy. What moves the energy? And that is the focus of our consciousness, and that is where meditation comes in. (Dr. Alison Kay)

The combination of meditation and energy work is what can lead to a serious change in one’s health. By spending time moving your body and moving the energies in your body through the connection you have between your mind and your physical being, you can learn a lot about what your body holds – by becoming in tune with your intuition.

By becoming in touch with your intuition and focusing your consciousness you are better able to understand and navigate the choices that you make because you are no longer, or less so, acting unconsciously, or without awareness.

HOW TALK THERAPY CAN CEMENT TRAUMA

I don’t believe that psychotherapy is very functional because from what I see the talk therapy just reinforces energy: it just locks down more energy into the same pathway, the same neurological pathway [which is] therefore the same physiological pathway and that is the same energetic pathway. So we carve something in stone even more … [making] it even more solid and real and harder to redirect through meditation practice. (Dr. Alison Kay)

Energy healing is focused on breaking up what has already materialized whereas talk therapy simply cements what was materialized that you are trying to undo. To break up and heal trauma takes a lot more subtle energy healing than only talking about it.

Through incorporating subtle energy healing practices such as exercise, meditation, energy healing itself can have much more of a holistic healing influence on the body and mind than only practicing talk therapy.

By moving our bodies in conjunction with moving through a painful trauma, exercise can help us release these stored or stuck energies.

INTUITION

Following one’s intuition has become a foreign concept for many people in the current generations, although it is a powerful and meaningful tool that people can use and become familiar with to guide their lives, or to seek guidance in it.

Coming into flow with one’s intuition comes from a place of trust: trusting yourself and your heart, but many people have been taught to doubt, rather than trust, themselves and so this leaves everyone seeking external validation and not believing in their own abilities.

This also leads to people not knowing how to approach their intuition and so they follow external prompts when they may need something different.

These [posts] that make people think “I just have to let go of control more” … hell no! You need to be front and center, be conscious, mindful, in your body, and leading your life. Absolutely in control but in co-creation with your higher self and source. (Dr. Alison Kay)

It is about trust but it is also about releasing the ego, surrendering as well as being present and taking action in your life: working with an energy healer and someone who understands or who can guide you will help this work be more beneficial to you than only following someone on social media.

ADVICE TO LISTENERS

There are so many teachers out there talking about this now and sometimes a person can follow multiple teachers at once, but if you really want to make some serious headway in your healing, you need to work closely with one person.

Dr. Kay’s tips on redirecting thoughts and working with neuroplasticity:

• You are conscious, mindful enough to practice detachment to your thoughts so that you can exist in an observer-role to your thoughts. You observe a thought that makes you contract,
• You can acknowledge it and ask “is that even true” if it is an old thought that has come up automatically from an old wound,
• Ask it: “how does it get better than this?”
• Ask it: “what else is possible?”

This last question causes a vacuum that questions your ego and allows yourself to perceive other things that can be created and fill that space.

books mentioned:

• Dr. Alison Kay – Vibrational UPgrade: A Conspiracy for Your Bliss
• Dr. Alison Kay – Reasonable Dragons: How to Activate the Field of Possibilities Where Logical Magic is the New Normal

Connect With Me

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Resources Mentioned And Useful Links:

• Authentic Marketing for Holistic Counseling with Michelle Hardman
• Practice of the Practice Podcast Network

[CHRIS McDONALD]

The Holistic Counseling Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Behind the Bite, Full of Shift and Impact Driven Leader, go to www.practiceofthepractice.com/network.

Welcome to the Holistic Counseling Podcast, where you discover diverse wellness modalities, advice on growing your integrative practice, and grow confidence in being your unique self. I'm your host, Chris McDonald. I'm so glad you're here for the journey.

I'm so excited for you to hear from today's guests and to learn more about her holistic program. Dr. Alison Jay Kay has secrets no one else uses to upgrade, inspire and disrupt old paradigms within her community and the collective. She's an award-winning number one international bestselling author and founder of the Vibrational UPgrade system. She's an experienced subtle energies practitioner and a natural healer with a holistic approach towards helping others thrive in mind, body, and spirit. Welcome to the podcast Dr. Alison.

[DR. ALISON JAY KAY]

Hey Chris, I'm happy to be here. Hi everyone.

[CHRIS]

Yes. I'm so glad that you can join us. So I wonder what your journey's been. So what interested you in going into the holistic route?

[DR. ALISON]

I could start way back. Well, first I was born --

[CHRIS]

Way back.

[DR. ALISON]

Mom at like age 12 was sitting on a swing out in our backyard and said, "Be really good with people. You have this natural understanding. You should consider being a psychologist. Okay. We lived, my mother knew me and it was one of those intuitive moments. So that was my first major in college. And when I was in my third semester of it, I was like, "Hey man, you're not showing me how to be the happiest, most thriving, joyous version of myself. You're focused on the hard wiring of the brain as applied to capitalistic endeavors like industrial management." No. So it was in the days of when psychology was wanting to be a hard science to prove itself. And so I was, meanwhile, I had chosen a university that had, unbeknownst to me before it was a totally intuitive approach filled in the logic of what they're required for SAT, blah, blah, blah. It was an intuitive approach because as I was there, I found that they had a Buddhist pagoda hidden out in the mountain. So it was in Amherst, the Happy Valley as it's called.

The first book written by an American on mindfulness came out of that university. So it was a good fit. My first semester there actually I took yoga. So I was already opening up to the holistic approach. And so I graduated, went to San Francisco and started to work. I was going there for my master's in creative writing, because that was ultimately what I ended up with. So blah, blah, blah. Bottom line is I ended up working synchronistically in politics to protect the environment. I was working on campaigns and the federal and the state of California elections and got the first Latino woman elected to the California state assembly who saved the last Patrick Green.

[CHRIS]

Wow.

[DR. ALISON]

Yes, it was good, but it was highly stressful, Chris. And so I learned to meditate because I was walking in a bookstore in San Francisco, recognizing that I needed some support because the stress was a little intense. We had so much success. I was such a natural at this work so I was put in the most intense races for the general elections as I was needing some help. And so book fell off a shelf, feels more like it left off a shelf and dropped at my feet and I couldn't walk any further.

[CHRIS]

That's the universe speaking to you, right?

[DR. ALISON]

I know. I was on meditation. So I picked it up and, but then it was such a natural fit that I ended up teaching it pretty soon, like a year and a half into learning how to meditate. So then the election season ends, I go overseas, I travel for six months, I come back to the states, get my master's to follow suit in that political field of getting people elected to positions with the right legislation that will protect the environment. So my master's was in public administration and public policy focused on environmental policy. And when I get out, I was looking at so where is most change going to happen? Where's the most change going to happen? And it wasn't, so I was looking at like inside the system, outside the system, NGOs, or working in like a local VPA or the federal VPA and nothing felt right.

Nothing fit. It was like that kind of wall thing where there's a sense of force and it's not coming together with a seamless grace and ease. So it didn't seem to have that sense of being meant to be with me there. So I re-evaluated and also recognized and really got it intuitively that if I'm going to be working now in getting the planet to shift out of its reliance on fossil fuels, it's not ready to shift. Look at the marketplace, look at the, it's just too dominated by the fossil fuels and glory at the same time, ironically had shifted out of politics and started touring with an inconvenient truth that won them the Nobel peace prize. So I went into relying on my bachelor's in English Literature and went into the classroom. And at that same time, I picked up my first energy medicine modality.

So keep in mind, I had been teaching meditation and meditating at this point for five or six years. Then I picked up my first energy medicine modality, and that was such a natural fit. I began as I taught in the public school system, running energy medicine sessions and holistic health and wellness. I was also getting trained as an herbalist, alongside my classroom teaching, and eventually had like clubs where I taught the kids to meditate and especially the boys.

[CHRIS]

That's awesome.

[DR. ALISON]

They were getting labeled the ADD and ADHD. And this was before Ritalin even came out. But the thing, no, this was before ADD and ADHD came out as a diagnosis, but they already had the Ritalin. Do you remember those days?

[CHRIS]

I do. Definitely.

[DR. ALISON]

I was in an inner city school with boys sent to get those labels more often than not. So yes, I was becoming increasingly steeped in the holistic model. In San Francisco I bought a book on the itching and I learned about reading the itching and that's ancient Taoist philosophy, is ancient as it goes. And so I was becoming increasingly steeped in the holistic model. And at that same, around the time of being a school teacher for two and a half years and running energy medicine sessions and holistic wellness sessions alongside my classroom teaching, I was sitting there with my hands over a client and just asking, okay, how can I get even more robust results for my clients? And at that same time, I was aware that this sense of adventure, travel and abundance and joy and fun and a liveliness was getting squeezed.

And that wasn't okay with me. I felt like I was looking at being in a cage for like about 30 years of a profession ahead of me and I wasn't making ends meet. I had barely any thankfully student loans from my masters because I worked all the way through it. I asked what else is possible and found the international school system and did what I had to do to get interviewed at the main event where all the heads of schools come in from around the world, got a bunch of job offers, chose the one over in Taiwan, the small democratic Chinese island, where they follow traditional Taoists and Chinese philosophies where they're free to because it's not mainland. So I went there to learn from not only where I saw the seat of ancient wisdom about holistic health and wellness, i.e., how energy flows, how consciousness works. Yoga and meditation is India, but this is Buddhism over there with meditation and then their ancient Chinese practices of acupuncture, reflexology Shingon and they're still operating from it.

It's not like in the west

[CHRIS]

It's amazing, yes.

[DR. ALISON]

We had some of this wisdom in the west or much of this wisdom in the west too, but it was with the Alchemist and then it went underground after the enlightenment to like the secret societies and the mystery schools. So it wasn't like the ancient wisdom was gone. It was still organizing even the society. And I go into this in great detail in my first book What If There's Nothing Wrong? And so I know that one of the things I talk about, so What If There's Nothing Wrong? Let's just look at that title. The biggest book in the Western medical system is the List of Psychological Disorders, right?

[CHRIS]

Yes. It's pretty big.

[DR. ALISON]

It is. It's the biggest text out of any book for Western medical training, no matter what you're going into, what specialty you're going into and it's full of what's wrong. And the basic Buddhist tenet is every human mind is neurotic. Here are the tools to work with your own particular flavor of neuroses.

[CHRIS]

I like that, your own flavor of neuroses.

[DR. ALISON]

That's for me.

[CHRIS]

That's great.

[DR. ALISON]

Thanks. Glad it could make you laugh. And so it feels like, let me fast forward here too. I'm a personal trainer as well. I mean, Shingon teaching, I eventually got certified in it. I went over to India during my last year in between the semesters. I was a teacher and administrator at this point over in the international school to get my yoga teacher training and certification in India. And so it just feels like there's this focus in the west, the medical system on, if the bottom line current is profit, you can extrapolate from there. So I come back here and I have all of this training and I have written my first book "What If There's Nothing Wrong?" my last year over there, starting as my dissertation. I have a PhD as a holistic life coach. I also have that personal trainer certification and recently got a specialty certification as a behavioral change specialist.

[CHRIS]

That sounds interesting.

[DR. ALISON]

It is. And so I've been piecing together this question of how do I be the happiest, most thriving, joyous version of myself and how do I help others do that and the planet thrive ever since my late teens. And so my life's work and mission is that, and yet it's also, I came back understanding the way that the east, I'm going to just do a sweeping generalization, excuse me, the way that the east has the sense of energy feeling, trumps, physical, that the quantum physics world has come out with saying that energy is, before something becomes a particle and collapses, that wave as everything exists at the subatomic level is energy. So there's a basic traditional Chinese medical tenet from Dow's Philosophy and it's where chi goes, blood follows. And chi is another way to say prana, like we doing.

[CHRIS]

Life energy, yes.

[DR. ALISON]

Literally translated as vital life force energy. Good. Yes. There's a teacher in me.

[CHRIS]

Very good.

[DR. ALISON]

Very interesting though, it takes us full forwards in English, vital life force energy. But it's one syllable in Chinese, Chi, it's two in Hindu or Sanskrit prana. It's one in Japanese ki as been Reiki. It's one in Egyptian, ka. So the vital life force energy, how it flows through the body and what happens when it doesn't flow through the body and how it gets moved through the body has been really the in-depth studying I've had and I've ended up a specialist in subtle energy, but if where chi goes, blood follows. So if we're entering vital life force energy, or let's shorten it to where energy goes, blood follows, meaning where energy goes then the physical manifest in that form, in that place. And for anything, let's go reverse, if for anything to exist in matter, it has to first exist in energy. What moves the energy? And that's the focus of our consciousness and that's where meditation comes in.

So I created this system eventually being back here, working with Americans again, after all of this training and my harshest cultural shock was when I got back here after 10 years, I'll never forget the first one.

[CHRIS]

Pretty bad.

[DR. ALISON]

Yes. Thanks for saying that. I'll never forget the first time I was with a client and she used the phrase, I better just figure it out. I had to go, it was like I was, I don't know how many seconds they were in that pause, but I was going back until I felt like the echoes of my mind to find the part of me that would have ever said a phrase like figure it out. Because I always have had this intuitive guidance that I've listened, I've learned to listen to like three times maybe. By my late teens, I had it and I saw the mayhem that ensued when I didn't listen to my intuition. So I have this mission and I'm my mastermind just call me a pioneer and a Maverick that I, there's a sense of extras. I have the sense of there is additional, extra, unnecessary, any of those words, suffering in the west because we tend to run from the back what I call the back of the house consciousness. The unconscious, the subconscious as if there's a boogeyman or monster under the bed, or as if we're going to go into our crazy and the last thing we want to do is that. We have our, and this comes up in my Catholic clients throughout the years, whether practicing or just grew up at, as a Catholic, have this as one of the worst cultural, I'm going to call it Catholicism culture, one of the worst cultural conditionings, where it's just not safe. There's fear and you must go to a priest instead of working with it yourself.

And then it also manifests as a really unique fear of using their intuitive power. So the bottom line here is learning how to go within and what the specific techniques to first work with a sense of learning, how to work with your thoughts, manage your ego mind, and then move beyond. It's not linear because at the same time, in the vibration upgrade system that I created, I'm clearing out the unconscious and subconscious blocks and the shocker system so that there is, that's cutting the mind body connection. I go into this in great depth in my first book, it's cutting the mind body connection. So where you're meeting somebody, or where you have a boss and that boss just, every time you see them, your body goes tight. You contract. That's mind, body connection due to something that's happened before, whether it's that boss or it's your original authority figure in this lifetime.

So if we're going about our daily life making choices, we're only hearing 15% of what makes us choose what we do, what makes us avoid what we avoid, what makes us not even catch in our peripheral vision, other options, or possibilities or pathways. So 15%. Yep. And that's a generous assessment. I go into this in my third and fourth books a lot.

[CHRIS]

That's pretty significant.

[DR. ALISON]

So there's so much more capacity and there's so much more to access than when we function from our model here in the west. It's just our intellectual mind and it's just the thoughts that we can hear. And even therapy. Like I don't believe that psychotherapy is very functional because from what I see, the talk therapy just reinforces energy. It locks down more energy into the same pathway. So that's the same neurological pathway, that's the same then therefore physiological pathway, and that's the same energy pathway. So it carves something in stone. Even more, it locks it down. It makes it even more solid and real and harder to redirect through meditation practice, come off of them, therefore physiologically and cut the mind body connection of or from. So there's all this other capacity. And I don't nowadays use this. Like I used to work with brain tumors and cancer and colon cancer and back pain, chronic pain, just like all sorts of health issues when I first came back and it wasn't fun. It was really heavy. So that was a few, if you like, that was more dematerializing matter, so breaking up what had already become materialized. And when we're working with energy, if something has already become physicalized, then it takes a lot more subtle energy ---

[CHRIS]

Yes. That would make sense that it would be more difficult to break up then.

[DR. ALISON]

You got it because it's like, I think the equation subtle energy plus subtle energy plus subtle energy.

[CHRIS]

Yes.

[DR. ALISON]

But when we catch it at the conscious level, consciousness, I don't mean conscious mind, but when it's only in consciousness or it's also only in emotions or it's in spirit, because a shocker is the intersection of the mind, body and spirit, and I can access past life stuff and karmic stuff. I've spent tens of thousands of dollars and years learning how to clear karma. It's a very intricate game.

Wow. I didn't know you could do that. That's a new. So how did you learn about the chakras and how to work with them?

[DR. ALISON]

I was already doing it before I left for Asia. And then I was going out on a daily basis when I lived in Asia, whether it was in Taiwan when I was there and it was nighttime after the gym, or it was the weekends and I get treatments, traditional Chinese treatments like tween or massages or reflexology or acupuncture. And I'd ask them questions. And so I was learning about, and then I got trained in Shingon. I think it was my first or second year there during break in Thailand. And so I learned, I was learning increasingly about how energy flows and I had already learned about the chakras in the west, in America before I left. So I started to piece together some new understandings. And I was also a weight trainer. I had been, my first semester in college I took yoga as an elective. My second semester in college, I took weight training as an elective. So I was very also focused on the body. I wasn't just all up in the head about consciousness and the mind and spirituality. It was very much about grounding the energy and how does energy flow in our body and how do we thrive with the utmost health and mind, body and spirit. So I was learning stuff to answer that question

[CHRIS]

And really holistic, right? Not just spiritual or mind and, got to look at the body too.

[DR. ALISON]

Yes, completely holistic. When I've been interviewed on, by other interviewers, like on Summit to interview a lot of people about the chakras, I frequently hear well, you have the most unique take on the chakras system I've ever heard, because I do that body part. So if you have a belief that for example, you may have thyroid issues. And if you do the throat chakras, centrally involved because every chakras recovers an endocrine gland and every, so the, I don't want to teach too much in depth. If you have a thyroid issue, it's connected to the throat chakras but could be happening. If the chakras is a wheel and it's supposed to turn that vital life force energy and if it doesn't, then you end up with blockages at the mind, body and spirit level, because it's the intersection of the mind, body and spirit.

[CHRIS]

Really?

[DR. ALISON]

Yes, it was a pattern for sure.

[CHRIS]

It's not something you saw before?

[DR. ALISON]

No. It was becoming open. It was becoming activated so to speak.

[CHRIS]

What does that mean?

[DR. ALISON]

[CHRIS]

No, I haven't.

[DR. ALISON]

So I was like, okay. But when I was teaching, I developed a course called global psychology when I was teaching at the international school in Taiwan, before I ended up teaching AP Psych. And I used texts from the Dalai Lamas, he had biannual summits at the time with Western, mostly American scientists. That's not true. There is actually a fair amount of Europeans scientists, psychologists, and it was mostly scientists and psychologists. Out of those texts came the first measurement of a, do you ever see the picture of the monk with the electrodes on his head?

[CHRIS]

No, I have not.

[DR. ALISON]

It's pretty famous. It was on the cover of Time back like in 20, I don't know, 11, 12 or 13. So the first study is about the effects of meditation on the mind came out of these summits.

[CHRIS]

Oh, got you.

[DR. ALISON]

Between the Dalai Lama and his Tibetan monks talking about the effects of meditation that they've known throughout their ancient wisdom, talking with a group of scientists to then measure it. And so this took place at the University of Madison and Wisconsin, primarily and then also at, I think it's the University of California. I think it was San Diego, also has a pretty prominent, not San Diego. I'm not going to quote the second one. So my first book, What if There's Nothing Wrong?, all of this stuff. So I'm saying this though, because why am I saying this? So I used it in this course that I would teach using the Dalai Lama's texts from the meetings, his summits. We ended up working within either an English unit, English literature unit or the psych courses. And I asked the question because of what we were working on and the material, "Are humans inherently good or evil?"

[CHRIS]

I think construction's building too, isn't it? Building something together.

[DR. ALISON]

And we do that through our choices and our choices get made by our throat chakras, encouraged at the throat chakra. But intuitive guidance doesn't only happen when people first start looking into energy. And part of my mission is to professionalize the field making, never calling it energy work, but always saying energy medicine and recognizing that there are techniques and the subtle energy system and in consciousness that if we do them, you get a predictable result. And if you want A, then we go to this technique and you get results A, over and over again, replicable. For example, a lot of people think that intuitive guidance comes in from the third eye, the sixth chakra.

[CHRIS]

Yes.

[DR. ALISON]

[CHRIS]

So the higher vibrating emotions too, maybe, and ---

[DR. ALISON]

[CHRIS]

Yes.

[DR. ALISON]

That's more the sacral chakras and the guidance of the rich emotions that we each feel. There's more like its data and mining than it is immediate guidance, unless it's fair to not go in that jungle or across that street. So let me see another way to say that. So if a woman comes to me and she has difficulty speaking up for herself, because she was told to be seen and not heard, and little girls are supposed to be pretty in dresses and to be admired and looked at, and she spent her life contorting her body to be thin, what is known as thin in her culture and beautiful and ends up, not with an eating disorder. I'm going to a disorder that we can load up in that big, huge book of disorder or psychological disorders. Let's just say she has a weirdness with food and she works out strenuously and she doesn't really like her body.

She's always criticizing when her girlfriends think her body's beautiful. They go out and her girlfriends always comment on how beautiful she looks. She's doing that unconsciously because of the conditioning from learning what her father appreciated learning, what girls were supposed to be for and imprints. Because if her father was able to say that it's most likely the mother was that. Do you know what I mean?

[CHRIS]

Yes.

[DR. ALISON]

So that's also parental imprints. And then we could go so far as to talk about this woman's spirit, but let's not do that because we're talking about emotions. So here is this horror in her whole life, possibly stuffing down her emotions, or when checked out, not recognizing that she's not really allowing herself to appreciate her body. So sex is hard for her, orgasms are hard for her, intimacy is hard for her because she has a general positioning of, "I'm not meant to enjoy my body. I'm meant to abuse my body in order to look pretty. So then I would go in and do clearings around that unconsciousness." And then as that is clearing, it's a yarn ball, family of entangled beliefs, other ones will come out. And so it's a process to get actual behavioral change that then once she's had enough of these cleared, I can then coach her in an applied mindfulness. And when I say applied, I mean, in a way that helps her, if the mind-body connection is cut, she's no longer unconscious about these choices, she's no longer unconscious about what she's doing to her body, she's no longer unconscious about how she has been shutting down her failing life. And so we can start to coach her in the mindfulness as she's going about her day to day life with, let's say her now husband, who wants to have intimacy and she pushes him away. And instead of doing that, working with the mindfulness to gradually allow herself to let her body be appreciated and enjoyed rather than feeling being forced.

[CHRIS]

So is it becoming more of, in a conscious way too, that she's more aware of these things?

[DR. ALISON]

Yes, but I'd want to make this sort of important point, Chris, because mindfulness has become, particularly since COVID a real buzzword, would you agree?

[CHRIS]

Oh, definitely. Yes.

[DR. ALISON]

So it's not this everyday mindfulness. Like I was frankly being interviewed by somebody and she talked about, yes, I ate an apple yesterday and it was really yummy. And I was really mindful about how that I was eating an apple. I was really mindful while I was eating the apple and I was happy for that. And I was thinking, okay, man, I get to find another way to say this mindfulness. It's like how I see it in getting actual behavioral change from a holistic perspective where we're dealing with every aspect that influences us to be who we are and making the choices we are and we're not; is I have to cut the mind body connection that's at the, so I have to go to the unconscious. I have to deal with the karma and the imprints and the past lives and the conditioning from this life and the conclusions and the beliefs that are unconscious.

So the subconscious takes the trauma, the unconscious, it takes the beliefs and such. So working with all the levels of consciousness here so that we can reach our full human potential. So before I can get to that level of mindfulness and bring it to her conscious awareness, I have to deal, I have to clear out that unconscious and I use energy medicine for that rather than spending months and months talking and talking and talking about it. Just get right to it, cut it, and don't talk about it until I get to more of the clearings and until she's ready to be mindful of it and actually make use of ---

[CHRIS]

So I guess from your perspective, and I think we talked to before I hit record that, so you think the vibrational upgrades, this energy system, so this would be helpful for mental health therapists too, to try to integrate this into therapy?

[DR. ALISON]

It'd be so much quicker. And I've had, as you said, we talked about this before we got on, I've had throughout the years, so many different licensed mental health counselors, psychologists, coaches just come to me to learn a new ---

[CHRIS]

I*t just sounds fascinating, you know?

[DR. ALISON]

It really is. I mean, and if you are that kind of a student, I am a really good person to teach you this stuff because I'm fascinated by it as well as you can probably ---

[CHRIS]

Especially from all your experiences with studying in Asia and all the trainings you've had, it sounds like you've really done your homework and integrated so much of this together.

[DR. ALISON]

Thank you, Chris. Yes, but to be able to communicate to a Western intellectual ---

[CHRIS]

Right, exactly.

[DR. ALISON]

Yes. But in such depth, like I frankly have had a lot of my masterminders hanging around with me renewing again and again and again, saying I just can't find somebody else who has the broad spectrum, but can go into depth with the stuff that you can like from my body to supplements to my mind, to my karma. It's fun.

[CHRIS]

I can tell you're passionate too. So this is your path, isn't it? Where you are today is where you're meant to be.

[DR. ALISON]

Well, I believe that I started with that. I don't normally do interviews. Back to age 12 and my mom said that to me on a swing out my backyard, you really good with understanding people. You should become a psychologist. I don't typically do that on interviews.

[CHRIS]

Yes.

[DR. ALISON]

Yes. I would say considering you're doing a new podcast, that's more your path. Yes. I'm living my path and then if I would veer off of it though, you got to keep in mind too. My system wouldn't really let me. After like 22, age 22, I just surrendered to my guy because I've always had this bigger mission. Like my dad said to me, "Alison, not many people pick up and live for a decade in Asia." I'm like, "Okay, I guess," but I didn't really get that at the time because I was just doing it. I was just listening to my guidance and being me and living my life. You know what I mean?

[CHRIS]

Yes, because I know you mentioned the internal guidance and hearing some things, some intuition. So do you think a lot of people are blocked with that, with a lot of these past traumas and other issues?

[DR. ALISON]

Yes. And the doubting and the self-doubt and not knowing the textural difference, the tonal difference between here's my mind intellectually, mechanically working to get a logical point from A plus B equaling C and then here's what intuition feels like. There's a textural tonal difference. And so they feel like, just the typical questions I see in my students in the mastermind getting trained is, "Am I making this up? Is it just my imagination? It's like the first level question.

[CHRIS]

Okay. So the doubt?

[DR. ALISON]

But then where I spend even more time clearing and teaching and instructing and guiding and mentoring is having the courage to actually follow the guidance.

[CHRIS]

That's the truth, right? Yes.

[DR. ALISON]

Totally. Yes. And I don't mean to make it sound like such a dare, like truth or dare. Dare.

[CHRIS]

Yes, exactly. I double dog dare you.

[DR. ALISON]

But it is kind of like, I don't know if you want to live the most vibrant, possible life and be fulfilled and you do it through your guidance. I have a big, I don't want to say bigger, but I have a particular mission here. So I'm a bit different. People look for like, where were you struggling? Like when I first started doing interviews and I had a new PR person, she came on saying, "You have to have a story that people can relate to of your journey, your struggle point that made you become who you are." And I'm like, "I don't have that." Contorting, and again, so my business coach for years has been like, "Push the pain points." And I'm like, "But I don't want to give it..." because the other majors I did between psychology and English, literature were mass communications and advertising and then a political and social, it was called social thought politically economy. So then I ended up in English, literature, studying humans and society through an art form after having done that with the previous majors. And so I didn't, when I first was taught by an Indian professor at my undergraduate school, it was a brilliant undergrad. He was saying how the commercials would target, everybody knows this by now listening, that the commercials would target, if you're, if this is a show, that's a soap opera. So that's going to be a lot of women at home. Housewives are going to market dish soap and laundry detergent and how much that forms our conditioning. It's unreal. It left such an impression on me. And so, yes, there's, I don't even remember why I was saying that, but the bachelor's degree I ended up with, I walked away with an impression of Jesus, do we have a lot of forces working against us in order to be our most genuine daring self?

[CHRIS]

That's very new. So don't you think too, with the intuition guidance and internal guiding, that there's doubt, but then you got to get to that place of trust? So trusting it.

[DR. ALISON]

It's take action. So like these memes that make people think, I just have to let go of control more at some stages on the path, hell no, you need to be front and center conscious, mindful in your body and leading your life. Absolutely in control, but in co-creation with your higher self and source. So there's so many different nuances and you could say, "Well, Alison isn't that surrender?" At one stage of it when you're first totally ego mind driven and have had done no work with your higher self or with your intuition, yes, it is all about surrender. But then it becomes, like there's the aspect of channeling that has been done in the field of psychic work. And so some people will leave their bodies and become a trans medium. And when listening to the intuition on behalf of somebody else, you don't want to leave your body. You want to be present perceiving and with the person in front of you while able to receive the intuitive guidance so you're that much more effective.

[CHRIS]

Yes. That makes sense. That's true.

[DR. ALISON]

Yes. So I find like these social media memes so misleading. Sometimes it's about trust.

[CHRIS]

Yes, connecting with that, but you got to be in the right place at the right time. You have to have done some work.

[DR. ALISON]

Yes, and have some, and it's so funny because I have my masterminders that have stayed with me like four years and they'll say, "Alison, I finally get what you mean by that." And I had been saying it to them for four years and it takes on a new meaning like year or two after they've made more progress. And then year three, after they become a different person and I'm working with more clients now, and then year four, when they've really started to work with the earth and its energy flows, not just themselves, clients, but now they're, what's called the dragon master level in vibrational upgrade and they're working with the Earth's energy flows. So these same basic teachings become more penetrative the further along you go and your understanding, but the trust aspect, just to help you out. If you don't already know this, it's the fourth chakra in part, but what kind of trust are you talking about? Do you know what I mean?

[CHRIS]

Yes. Yes.

[DR. ALISON]

Trust in source, trust that you're hearing the right thing, trust in yourself to be able to follow through because those are all different chakras.

[CHRIS]

Yes. So I guess determining where the trust is coming from and it might be part of it, right?

[DR. ALISON]

[CHRIS]

Yes. Yes, definitely. So what's that takeaway that you could share today that could help listeners who might be just starting their holistic journey and maybe just wanting to explore different holistic means and modalities.

[DR. ALISON]

I feel like there's so many different teachers out there talking about this now. And I see a lot of people piecing it together from different teachers. And I did some of that in the beginning, but if you want a really in-depth one-stop shopping, you want to work with me, frankly. I've never said that out loud in the sweat from self promotional way,

[CHRIS]

There you go. You got to stand in your truth.

[DR. ALISON]

Thanks Chris. But it really is like to know there's this whole system full of techniques to do within consciousness and within the subtle energy system and to really learn it in depth rather than piece it together, a patch it together here and there. I wouldn't use it at all unless you understand it, frankly, because you could get yourself in trouble. That makes sense. However, here's a great way to help yourself redirect starting with working with neuroplasticity and working with creating new neurological pathways and then new physiological pathways. Let's say you do hear you're conscious enough and mindful and you have enough detachment. You've done enough work that you can actually observe your thought and so in that spaciousness and observer role, you observe a thought that makes you contract, makes you uncomfortable. Oh, you could say to it. So first that's acknowledging it, second is, is that even true? That's the redirect, starting the redirect off of making something solid and real that your mind is randomly thinking or from an old wound, for example, or old conditioning. And you're just making choices unconsciously and your system is being run by that, which is the way most people are until they start this work. So is that even true? Talking back to your thought.

A third one, okay, so hardly this get any better than this, but complete redirect. Fourth, what else is possible? Ask that question.

[CHRIS]

That's a great question.

[DR. ALISON]

Because now that question, nature abhors a vacuum. So when you ask a question, instead of walking around acting and proving like you know everything, like I have sounded during this interview ---

[CHRIS]

You know it all, don't you?

[DR. ALISON]

By asking, but you know, because we're so taught in school.

[CHRIS]

Let me raise my hand.

[DR. ALISON]

Asking what else is possible, asking a question helps because there is our own field, which I call a localized consciousness. And if our chakras are all open after all of this work and emanating out of the void to seize that they each are supposed to have in front of them, your field is then created. And then the greater field that is of the Dow or the Chi running through the trees and the animals and our planet, that's a greater field. And so when we ask a question from our own, I want to say activated and aligned opened field to the greater field we're in, it is becoming increasingly unlimited in its possibilities. We're in such new unprecedented times now. That that's really how you blow it all up,

[CHRIS]

But I can really connect with that question though. I think that that could really help a lot of people on their journey to really be open.

[DR. ALISON]

What I asked that got me over to Asia now to teaching in the public school system here in the States, "This isn't okay with me. I want more."

[CHRIS]

Yes. That's a good reflection. So what's the best way for listeners to find you and learn more about you,

[DR. ALISON]

So my website's called vibrationalupgrade.com and Chris and I were talking ahead of time about the best way for you to listeners, because this is a very specific audience. I want to offer you all, something different that I don't ever offer on a, I'm actually making sure I'm authentic in saying that I really don't ever offer this on summits. I might, but not on a podcast. So I have a team set up of people trained in vibrational upgrade system and they do 45 minute calls to feel people to see and help with what you're desiring and what support we can give you and direct you accordingly. That's called an open the drawbridge call. So if you go to my website, vibrationalupgrade.com and you see the Work With Me tab, drop it down. The drop down menu says programs and then from any of those, you can access the open the Drawbridge call. You'll see how to book a 45 minute one-on-one call with one of my team members.

[CHRIS]

That's very generous.

[DR. ALISON]

Thanks. I mean, it's always there.

[CHRIS]

Appreciate it.

[DR. ALISON]

It's always there and makes people wild to find out that that's something we do. So I just want to ---

[CHRIS]

Oh okay. Yes, that makes sense. Yes.

[DR. ALISON]

I just wanted to put that front and center because I historically have had a lot of licensed mental health counselors that wanted to know the holistic model. I did, that's what led me to finding it. It's not enough, the Western training and it just isn't enough nowadays to be able to deal with what people are fielding, acidity in our food and what their hormonal systems doing because of it and then all the other. The spirit is so strong. I see when people choose to come into work with me, for example, let's say that they've been having a money issue and they're coming into my signature program, Magic Manifestation and Money Flow. A woman in Colorado owned a brick and mortar, let me give you this example, owned a brick and mortars clothing store, hadn't had much business. It was something to do with what she was thinking and believing and wanting to get work done on it. So she gets out and open the Drawbridge call and hadn't had any customer in that day. And so she gets off, she joins, she's like, if I want something different, I have to do something different. So she threw it down on her credit card, hung up the phone, and within an hour, a woman, I'm assuming it's a woman. I don't know a person came into the store, first one that day, a customer and bought over grand worth of clothing and ---

[CHRIS]

Oh my goodness.

[DR. ALISON]

Yes. I had the same reaction. I'm like, "Is that normal? I mean, you're a high price boutique." She said, "No." So that paid for a third of the program already within an hour.

[CHRIS]

That's incredible.

[DR. ALISON]

I'm saying that because, it's because I'm so aligned and I'm so blessed that that's, I do a program that actually gives blessings as part of my, when I do an activation, it's blessings are included. So people definitely benefit. Like I did a surprise money clearing two weeks ago and by four days later, another woman had received 8,000 in [crosstalk] I know, but at the same time, I'm opening people up to open up the receptivity. But this woman was fresh on that one call, but why I'm saying this is because her soul from her spirit made such a command, "I will have something different." And she said, okay, took action, and invested in herself, shifted her so much. What can we do in any clearings honor that she then had that customer come in because she was making a Clarion call for what she wants to have. So there was so much motor our systems ---

[CHRIS]

So powerful, isn't it?

[DR. ALISON]

The soul, the spirit is so powerful and it is becoming increasingly so in one being in these times. So to just limit ourselves to a Western intellectual understanding, we all know it's not enough [crosstalk].

[CHRIS]

That's why we're here with the Holistic Counseling Podcast.

[DR. ALISON]

Indeed.

[CHRIS]

For sure. Well, I appreciate you sharing all this today. So this is a definitely a different perspective and a different way of using holistic medicine because I had not heard a lot of this, so this is great.

[DR. ALISON]

That's different, isn't it?

[CHRIS]

I love it.

[DR. ALISON]

It's like the mirror.

[CHRIS]

Yes. And I thank my listeners for tuning in today and I hope you're able to connect with the content and be able to apply that into your practice. And I will put in the show notes, the information, if you need to reach out to Dr. Alison, if you want more information. Just remember to subscribe, rate and review wherever you get your podcasts.

And again, this is Chris McDonald sending each one you much light and love. Until next time, take care.

If you're loving the show, will you rate review and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform? We just started this and that helps other people find this show. Also, if you're feeling uncertain about your modalities and you want to build your confidence to be your unique self, I want you to join my free email course, Becoming A Holistic Counselor over at holisticcounselingpodcast.com. In my Becoming A Holistic Counselor course, you'll get tips for adding integrative care into your practice, what training you need and don't, and the know-how to attract your ideal holistic clients. If this sounds like the direction you're headed, sign up at holisticcounselingpodcast.com.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.