Latest / Destination Unlimited with Victor Fuhrman / Dr. Tracey Ulshafer – The Accidental Yogini: Padma

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Dr. Tracey Ulshafer – The Accidental Yogini: Padma · Destination Unlimited with Victor Fuhrman

0:04
Speaker 1: My name is Victor Furman. Some call me the Voice.
0:10
Speaker 1: I've always been fascinated with human nature, spirituality, science, and
0:15
Speaker 1: the crossroads at which they meet. Join me now and
0:19
Speaker 1: we will explore these topics and so much more with
0:22
Speaker 1: fascinating guests, authors and experts who will guide us to
0:28
Speaker 1: Destination Unlimited. In the late nineteen eighties, I was suffering
0:38
Speaker 1: from a back injury. A friend suggested I take yoga classes,
0:42
Speaker 1: and that marked the reopening of my spiritual path. I
0:46
Speaker 1: became an accidental Yogi. My guest this week on Destination Unlimited,
0:52
Speaker 1: Doctor Tracy Alshaeffer followed a similar path and became an
0:56
Speaker 1: accidental Yogini, launching her career as a yoga teacher, healer, author,
1:02
Speaker 1: documentary filmmaker, international retreat leader, and interfaith doctor of Ministry.
1:08
Speaker 1: She's the founder of One Yoga and Wellness and the
1:11
Speaker 1: author of several books, including the award winning novel The
1:15
Speaker 1: Accidental Yogini. Her website is one yogacenter dot net, and
1:20
Speaker 1: she joins me this week to share her path and
1:23
Speaker 1: just published new novel in the Accidental Yogini series, The
1:27
Speaker 1: Accidental Yogini Podma. Please join me in welcoming doctor Tracy Alshaver. Tracy, Welcome,
1:36
Speaker 1: Hello Victor.
1:37
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me today.
1:39
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it is so nice to be together again. It
1:43
Speaker 1: was my pleasure to meet you when we were both
1:45
Speaker 1: pursuing our Doctor of Ministry degrees with the New Seminary
1:48
Speaker 1: back in twenty twenty, and we're associate ministers with the
1:51
Speaker 1: Interfaith Temple. Tracy, please share with our listeners your early
1:55
Speaker 1: path and how it evolved before yoga, massage and healing
2:00
Speaker 1: became your calling.
2:01
Speaker 3: HM.
2:02
Speaker 2: Well, I can summarize it a little bit for you
2:05
Speaker 2: because I've written about it actually in length in another
2:09
Speaker 2: one of my co authored books. But I worked at
2:14
Speaker 2: an office, I was a manager. I didn't really have
2:18
Speaker 2: a very I would say healthy life, body, mind, or spirit.
2:23
Speaker 2: And I actually had a compression fracture in my spine
2:30
Speaker 2: when I was a teenager car accident and I had
2:36
Speaker 2: chronic issues. And one day a friend of mine said, Hey,
2:42
Speaker 2: would you like to try yoga? Maybe it'll help you?
2:45
Speaker 2: And I said sure. I guess I didn't really want
2:48
Speaker 2: to do it. I didn't have I wasn't very open
2:52
Speaker 2: back then. I was quite negative and just life was
2:58
Speaker 2: not working out for me in any way way, and
3:02
Speaker 2: we went to yoga. I can't say that I enjoyed it.
3:06
Speaker 2: The first several times were not easy, and I did
3:11
Speaker 2: not like the situation, but I kept going back, mostly
3:16
Speaker 2: because she promised we could go to dinner after, so
3:18
Speaker 2: it was more social event for me. But what happened
3:22
Speaker 2: was at some point my back stopped hurting and then
3:28
Speaker 2: I you know, for people that have been in kind
3:31
Speaker 2: of chronic pain, if they do try something healing, you
3:36
Speaker 2: get to a point where suddenly one day you realize
3:38
Speaker 2: you're not taking medication and you're feeling better, but you
3:42
Speaker 2: don't know exactly how that happened. And when I had
3:46
Speaker 2: that epiphany, my life started to change, and I began
3:51
Speaker 2: to dive more into all types of holistic practices. Eventually,
3:58
Speaker 2: I got out of my career, much to the chagrin
4:04
Speaker 2: of my grandmother and parents, because they couldn't understand why
4:09
Speaker 2: I was leaving a job that had benefits and what
4:15
Speaker 2: they perceived as security for a job doing massage therapy
4:21
Speaker 2: and teaching yoga, and eventually opening my own wellness center
4:26
Speaker 2: that I ran for twenty two years in New Jersey,
4:30
Speaker 2: helping other people figure out how to reclaim their their
4:36
Speaker 2: really their highest self, and I think that I think
4:40
Speaker 2: that I always had an interest in that component, what
4:47
Speaker 2: is the highest self? Because as a child, I was
4:52
Speaker 2: not brought up in any religious background. My mother, my
4:57
Speaker 2: mother's mother, was Jewish, so if you ask Jews, they'll
5:01
Speaker 2: say I'm Jewish. But I was baptized in a Methodist church,
5:07
Speaker 2: which was my father's upbringing, although he never went to church.
5:11
Speaker 2: So if you asked that side of the family, that's
5:14
Speaker 2: what I was. But they never sent us to church.
5:19
Speaker 2: We never did anything like that. So they always said,
5:23
Speaker 2: you'll figure it out when you get older. What is
5:25
Speaker 2: your belief or what is your belief system? And so
5:29
Speaker 2: what happened was just this organic, natural inquiry. I think
5:34
Speaker 2: of who am I and what is you know, what
5:39
Speaker 2: is this life about? And then as I got into
5:41
Speaker 2: yoga and the spirituality around that practice developed for me,
5:47
Speaker 2: it went deeper and so at some point I decided,
5:53
Speaker 2: I think I want to take this further. And I
5:57
Speaker 2: just found when I was looking into who Interfaith seminaries,
6:03
Speaker 2: the New Seminary, and what really brought me in there
6:06
Speaker 2: was my connection through Swami Sacha Ananda. Because I taught
6:11
Speaker 2: a lot of my teacher training with his materials and books.
6:14
Speaker 2: So I had that connection and then you know, things
6:18
Speaker 2: blossomed from there.
6:20
Speaker 1: You know something I didn't realize some of the stuff
6:22
Speaker 1: that you just shared with us. I think you're my
6:25
Speaker 1: sole sister. And I'll tell you why the synchronicities are unbelievable.
6:32
Speaker 1: My father was Jewish. My mother was raised Catholic. When
6:35
Speaker 1: she married my father, she converted to Judaism. I was
6:39
Speaker 1: raised as a not really religious gew more of a
6:43
Speaker 1: cultural Jew, spiritually cultural Jew. And when I was eight
6:48
Speaker 1: weeks old, my mother took me to my Catholic aunt's
6:52
Speaker 1: house and her aunt sold her that she looked tired.
6:56
Speaker 1: She said, why don't you take a nap and we'll
6:58
Speaker 1: look after Victor. And while she was napping, they surreptitiously
7:02
Speaker 1: got me out of the house. They took me to
7:04
Speaker 1: their church and they baptized me.
7:07
Speaker 2: Oh, wow, is.
7:09
Speaker 1: That is that amazing? Or is that amazing? And then
7:12
Speaker 1: and then, when when I was in my late thirties,
7:15
Speaker 1: I was having back issues and a friend suggested that
7:19
Speaker 1: I take yoga classes. Wow, and I found a wonderful
7:23
Speaker 1: yoga teacher who became wonderful friends with me. And this
7:27
Speaker 1: led to the reopening of my spiritual path and a
7:30
Speaker 1: series of amazing synchronicities. We've had very very similar.
7:35
Speaker 2: Backgrounds, very similar. You know, when we met at the
7:38
Speaker 2: New Seminary, I felt a connection with you at once.
7:42
Speaker 2: So this is this is verifying that there we've definitely
7:47
Speaker 2: walked the same path together in other lives, I believe.
7:50
Speaker 1: And I didn't actually leave my day job because I
7:54
Speaker 1: had a family to support, but I had a combination
7:57
Speaker 1: of the industrial technology that was my day job and
8:00
Speaker 1: then the spiritual work that ensued from my beginning with
8:04
Speaker 1: yoga and then leading to reiki and then ultimately leading
8:07
Speaker 1: to the New Seminary the first time for me back
8:09
Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties, and a friend of mine who
8:12
Speaker 1: knew about my spiritual pursuits and also knew about my
8:17
Speaker 1: day job. So how do you balance the fact that
8:18
Speaker 1: you have a day job in industrial technology and this
8:22
Speaker 1: other stuff that you do. And without even thinking about it,
8:25
Speaker 1: I said, the day job pays my salary, the other
8:28
Speaker 1: work pays my solary. And I have this word solary
8:31
Speaker 1: come out of me, and that really described what you know.
8:36
Speaker 1: I call it solary, the compensation of spirit, and that's
8:40
Speaker 1: really what it is. And I think you have the
8:41
Speaker 1: same sense of that.
8:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know my first yoga teacher, I did
8:48
Speaker 2: my reiki one and two with her as well, so
8:50
Speaker 2: she also, you know, reiki was another thing, what another
8:54
Speaker 2: part of that that came from from yoga. But for
8:59
Speaker 2: a lot of people, I think a yoga practice or
9:04
Speaker 2: learning reiki, those two things I think start their journey
9:09
Speaker 2: in opening up that realm to so many other things,
9:13
Speaker 2: you know, spiritually and energetically, they're jumping off their launching points.
9:19
Speaker 2: But for me, yoga is also like my home base.
9:22
Speaker 2: I come back to it in different ways. I think
9:26
Speaker 2: I might be jumping ahead a little bit, but I
9:27
Speaker 2: think part of my writing the book series that I'm
9:32
Speaker 2: working on, The Accidental Yoghini, is to teach people the
9:36
Speaker 2: layers of yoga and it's not just about bending and
9:39
Speaker 2: stretching your body. So but it is my home base absolutely.
9:46
Speaker 1: You know there is another synchronicity there. You had said
9:49
Speaker 1: you and your initial yoga teacher got involved with reiki.
9:54
Speaker 1: That's what happened with me.
9:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it's I think a common thing. Well, I
10:00
Speaker 2: think a lot of you know, yoga teachers, holistic practitioners.
10:03
Speaker 2: We I do a lot of things you know, it's
10:08
Speaker 2: if you look at my resume, it's all kind of
10:10
Speaker 2: all over the place. But but I find that with
10:14
Speaker 2: a lot of holistic practitioners, once once one avenue is open,
10:19
Speaker 2: we kind of look at all of them because we
10:21
Speaker 2: realize that there are a lot of different practical aspects
10:28
Speaker 2: of these things that can help people. And really that's
10:31
Speaker 2: what we're in this business for. Uh We've we've done
10:35
Speaker 2: things that have helped us, but we want to share
10:36
Speaker 2: them in helping other people. I you know, I worked,
10:41
Speaker 2: I was that regular person. I'm still regular person, by
10:45
Speaker 2: the way, but that worked in corporate America that felt
10:51
Speaker 2: kind of empty in their life. And I see it
10:54
Speaker 2: in a lot of friends and family, and I try to,
11:00
Speaker 2: you know, if they're open to it, I try to
11:02
Speaker 2: show them, will this worked for me? Or maybe you
11:03
Speaker 2: can think about that or you know, and have those
11:06
Speaker 2: conversations because they if they helped me, and I was
11:10
Speaker 2: really not a very healthy person in all aspects when
11:15
Speaker 2: I was younger. If it helped me, I think it
11:18
Speaker 2: can help it can help anybody.
11:21
Speaker 1: Absolutely, you know. It's interesting. So when I first started
11:23
Speaker 1: taking yoga, the teacher and I became very good friends,
11:27
Speaker 1: and she said, you know, your voice is perfect for
11:30
Speaker 1: facilitating meditation when you lead meditation. I said absolutely, and
11:33
Speaker 1: I started leading the class meditations, and then we started
11:37
Speaker 1: going on a series of retreats to a zendo of
11:40
Speaker 1: a Livingston manor in New York. And at one of
11:43
Speaker 1: those retreats, someone mentioned the word reiki, which was something
11:46
Speaker 1: I had never consciously heard before. But it attracted me,
11:50
Speaker 1: like I said my teacher and then another friend of ours,
11:53
Speaker 1: and it was something at that time that we said
11:55
Speaker 1: we'd looked into the following year, but two weeks later
11:58
Speaker 1: we're a first quest.
12:00
Speaker 2: Well that's how it happens, Victor.
12:02
Speaker 1: I did.
12:05
Speaker 2: Maybe a little over a year long massage therapy program,
12:10
Speaker 2: and I was in that massage therapy program when my
12:12
Speaker 2: yoga teacher decided to do a yoga teacher training. I
12:16
Speaker 2: had one week in between two year long courses. I
12:23
Speaker 2: just dove one into another into another, you know, but
12:27
Speaker 2: it felt right.
12:29
Speaker 1: And the reason that I went to the new seminary.
12:32
Speaker 1: This is another synchronicity is that in those days, if
12:36
Speaker 1: you wanted to go into a hospital and do laying
12:39
Speaker 1: out of hands, you had to either be a licensed
12:42
Speaker 1: massage therapist, which I didn't have time for you couldn't
12:45
Speaker 1: take off two years from work and go to massage
12:47
Speaker 1: school or ordained in a faith where laying out of
12:51
Speaker 1: hands was one of the sacraments. And through this wonderful
12:55
Speaker 1: relationship that ensued for me. Back then, I learned about
12:58
Speaker 1: the New Seminary and I had tended and that was
13:01
Speaker 1: life changing in so so many ways. Did you find
13:04
Speaker 1: that the same?
13:05
Speaker 2: Yes. In fact, one of the reasons that I decided
13:11
Speaker 2: to go to the New Seminary was because I was
13:15
Speaker 2: considering closing my wellness center to be a hospital chaplain.
13:19
Speaker 2: I wanted to go into hospital chaplaincy. And then the
13:23
Speaker 2: pandemic happened. Yeah, so my mind changed a little bit
13:28
Speaker 2: around that, or avenues changed.
13:32
Speaker 1: And I think you know this. I also met my wife,
13:34
Speaker 1: Lori Sue through the New Seminary. She was in the
13:36
Speaker 1: class after my class. Yeah, and she and I became
13:39
Speaker 1: chaplains for the Red Cross after nine to eleven, among
13:42
Speaker 1: other things. So you go in with one reason, but
13:45
Speaker 1: spirit and energy has another reason in mind for all
13:49
Speaker 1: of us.
13:49
Speaker 4: Correct.
13:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, you are a prolific author. Before we discuss
13:59
Speaker 1: you're just publish new editions in the accidental Yoghini series.
14:04
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about your earlier books, including
14:06
Speaker 1: the mononyms, the single word titled woth, Butterfly, and Raven.
14:13
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I guess back then when I published,
14:19
Speaker 2: and I can't even remember what year. I'd have to
14:21
Speaker 2: go look that up, but let's throw out twenty ten
14:24
Speaker 2: as a possible time frame. I just had learned about
14:33
Speaker 2: the idea of self publishing. So when I was young,
14:38
Speaker 2: I always wrote. I was the kid that ran home
14:43
Speaker 2: from school wrote little plays that my friends and I
14:46
Speaker 2: would act out at the in school at recess the
14:50
Speaker 2: next day. So I was always writing. I had many
14:56
Speaker 2: beautiful teachers in school that encouraged me to write, so
15:02
Speaker 2: it was always a part of what it was. Even
15:04
Speaker 2: when I was in corporate America, I wrote articles or
15:07
Speaker 2: stories for the different magazines or publications newsletters that we had.
15:14
Speaker 2: So it's always been a part of who I am,
15:16
Speaker 2: and I really feel that one of my archetypes is
15:19
Speaker 2: the storyteller. It really speaks to me. So when I
15:25
Speaker 2: found out about this stuff that you could actually self publish,
15:29
Speaker 2: I thought, Oh, this is something I could just do
15:33
Speaker 2: and I don't have to go through the process of
15:36
Speaker 2: trying to find a literary agent, which at the time
15:40
Speaker 2: was really a daunting task. So I said, I'm just
15:45
Speaker 2: going to do this, and I decided to write a book.
15:50
Speaker 2: I have to be honest, I don't spend a lot
15:53
Speaker 2: of time thinking about what I'm going to write. I really,
15:58
Speaker 2: for lack of a better word, I'm going to use
16:00
Speaker 2: the word channel. I just opened myself up and I
16:04
Speaker 2: start writing, and I let myself channel whatever needs to
16:07
Speaker 2: come through. So what I wound up writing was Butterfly,
16:11
Speaker 2: which was a book about roughly my life as a
16:15
Speaker 2: child growing up in a particular city that I grew
16:19
Speaker 2: up in, New Jersey, and the story is pretty much
16:23
Speaker 2: things that happened to me around the time that I
16:26
Speaker 2: was thirteen, and so, you know, all my childhood friends
16:31
Speaker 2: got excited that I was writing this book and different
16:35
Speaker 2: characters in there that represent them, so it was kind
16:39
Speaker 2: of a fun thing. And what happened was the subsequent
16:45
Speaker 2: two books of Wolf and Raven. It's the same heroine,
16:51
Speaker 2: but different stages of her life and representing somewhat of
16:57
Speaker 2: my life, but not in totality. I started to kind
17:01
Speaker 2: of get a little bit more creative in those books
17:03
Speaker 2: and stretch myself because in Wolf, the characters in her
17:08
Speaker 2: I think thirties, and then in Raven she's older than
17:14
Speaker 2: I am now, and she's she is a spiritual person
17:22
Speaker 2: similar to myself, but she's saying goodbye to a good
17:26
Speaker 2: friend of hers that just recently passed and kind of
17:28
Speaker 2: reviewing their spiritual journey together. So it's, you know, sprinkled
17:35
Speaker 2: with parts of my life. But I started to kind
17:39
Speaker 2: of play more in the fictional realm, and that that
17:44
Speaker 2: really just broke me open to writing other books like
17:51
Speaker 2: The Accidental Eyugini.
17:53
Speaker 1: Listen, I think we have to have a DNA test,
17:55
Speaker 1: because I too, when I was in school as a kid,
17:59
Speaker 1: was a prolific writer, and like you, I channeled it.
18:03
Speaker 1: I had channeled poetry, I had channeled stories. I was
18:06
Speaker 1: a journalist all so. I was a journalist in junior
18:09
Speaker 1: high school in the junior high school newspaper. But again
18:14
Speaker 1: this series of commonalities, I think you and I are
18:17
Speaker 1: definitely brother and sister. There's no question about it.
18:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna have to talk about it even more.
18:21
Speaker 1: I think absolutely. You were also a contributor to the
18:26
Speaker 1: best selling Learning The Language of Soul. How did that
18:29
Speaker 1: come about and what.
18:30
Speaker 2: Did you share ah, yeah, love initiation, learning the language
18:35
Speaker 2: of soul. That was an interesting thing. I I travel
18:45
Speaker 2: the world. I not so much recently, but I found
18:50
Speaker 2: myself over the years drawn to power places along of
18:54
Speaker 2: the planet and ancient sites, and just noticing that when
19:01
Speaker 2: I traveled, I wanted to go to these ancient temples
19:04
Speaker 2: and these power places in the planet. So I'm Egypt.
19:08
Speaker 2: Of course, It's always on the list, and since I
19:11
Speaker 2: was a young kid, Egypt has always been on the list.
19:14
Speaker 2: So I was looking into going to Egypt. And I
19:19
Speaker 2: had told someone that I know that I was taking
19:23
Speaker 2: his trip to Egypt. And then the Facebook gods somehow
19:31
Speaker 2: connected me with Julianne Santini. And normally I don't accept
19:37
Speaker 2: friend requests from people that I don't know, but something
19:44
Speaker 2: about her I must have just said yes, and we
19:47
Speaker 2: were Facebook friends and I saw her her trip to
19:53
Speaker 2: Egypt come up on Facebook and I went, oh, what's
19:58
Speaker 2: this And it turned out to be a group of
20:01
Speaker 2: healers that they were taking on this trip and also
20:05
Speaker 2: writing a book, and I thought, what that's me I write.
20:10
Speaker 2: So I shifted gears from from nearly sending a deposit
20:17
Speaker 2: to this other person to going on this trip with
20:21
Speaker 2: Julianne and her partner John uh and it was beyond
20:26
Speaker 2: phenomenal and Victor is probably this is probably another podcast
20:31
Speaker 2: because we could talk about this infinitely what happened on
20:35
Speaker 2: this trip and some of the things that transpired. But
20:39
Speaker 2: but the thing that came out of it was this
20:41
Speaker 2: beautiful book that each one of the people on the
20:46
Speaker 2: trip who were healers. You know, somebody is a a
20:53
Speaker 2: acupuncturist and somebody does reggie or you know, all these
21:00
Speaker 2: different healing modalities. A lot of us a mix of
21:04
Speaker 2: healing modalities, and so we wrote what was our love
21:11
Speaker 2: initiation to learning the language of our soul and then
21:16
Speaker 2: a little practice that goes along with it. And my
21:19
Speaker 2: chapter just happens to be about these earth chakras, these
21:24
Speaker 2: power places on the planet and what can happen when
21:27
Speaker 2: we go there and have a reciprocal healing event where
21:33
Speaker 2: we're receiving from the planet, but we're also giving to
21:36
Speaker 2: the planet.
21:37
Speaker 1: Beautiful. My guest Reverend doctor Tracy Alshaeffer. When we come back,
21:42
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about her Accidental Yoghini series. Tracy,
21:45
Speaker 1: please share with our listeners where they can get your
21:47
Speaker 1: books and find out more about you and your amazing work.
21:51
Speaker 2: You can check me out on my website which is
21:54
Speaker 2: one yogacenter dot net and that's all spelled out and
21:58
Speaker 2: the books are available on apps on.
22:01
Speaker 1: And tell us about the signing that you have coming up.
22:04
Speaker 2: I have a book signing in New Jersey. If you're
22:07
Speaker 2: in the Tri state area. There's a beautiful place, Black
22:11
Speaker 2: Forest Acres in Hamilton Square, right in the center of
22:14
Speaker 2: New Jersey. On the twenty second of December, from twelve
22:18
Speaker 2: to two, I will have books for sale and I'll
22:21
Speaker 2: be signing pre purchased copies.
22:24
Speaker 1: Wonderful and we'll be back with more of Tracy after
22:27
Speaker 1: these words on the Own Times Radio network.
22:31
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23:59
Speaker 1: Council Back on Destination Unlimited to my guest this week,
24:05
Speaker 1: my dear friend, Reverend doctor Tracy Alshaeffer. We're going to
24:10
Speaker 1: be talking about her books, The Accidental Yogini Series. Tracy
24:14
Speaker 1: I suspect that the Accidental Yogini series, even though written
24:19
Speaker 1: as novels, fictionally address your personal yogic path. Am I onto.
24:24
Speaker 2: Something in this case, I'll say that in the first
24:32
Speaker 2: book that I wrote, which is now retitled The Accidental
24:36
Speaker 2: Yogini Kristen, there's a similarity in that she works in
24:42
Speaker 2: an office and she has some issues with her body.
24:48
Speaker 2: She also winds up with somebody that has a couple
24:53
Speaker 2: of children. So other than that, those are parts of
24:57
Speaker 2: my life that are true to that story. Other than that,
25:01
Speaker 2: I took a lot of creative liberty with Padma. It
25:06
Speaker 2: is one creative liberty, it's not it's not my story.
25:11
Speaker 2: I wanted to really stretch myself and use a combination
25:18
Speaker 2: of uh, some of my students that I've met over
25:24
Speaker 2: the years and their journeys through yoga or some of
25:29
Speaker 2: the things that maybe the qualities of them that I
25:34
Speaker 2: I witnessed, or parts of their journey that I was
25:39
Speaker 2: able to uh to be a part of. But then
25:43
Speaker 2: I also stretched it even further into a creative aspect
25:48
Speaker 2: of the story where it's it's not based on like
25:52
Speaker 2: there's some things in Padma total imagine from my imagination.
25:57
Speaker 2: So yeah, I wouldn't say pick up Padma and see
26:02
Speaker 2: much of me. But I have had many, many people
26:06
Speaker 2: tell me with the first book that when they read it,
26:10
Speaker 2: they thought I was writing about them. And that's what
26:13
Speaker 2: I want people to see. I want people to see
26:15
Speaker 2: themselves in this in these stories.
26:18
Speaker 1: Absolutely. What inspired you to write the Accidental Yogini the
26:22
Speaker 1: original one?
26:25
Speaker 2: I think at that time I just decided to write again.
26:33
Speaker 2: You know, running a wellness center is a twenty four
26:36
Speaker 2: to seven full time commitment of your life. Even when
26:42
Speaker 2: you're on vacation or out of the country, you are
26:46
Speaker 2: you know, you're in it. So I needed and that's
26:52
Speaker 2: a very creative thing, you know, teaching yoga and the
26:54
Speaker 2: way that I did things is very creative aspect. But
26:57
Speaker 2: I needed the writing aspect. I needed that for me
27:01
Speaker 2: because it's so much a part of my soul. So
27:05
Speaker 2: I just wanted to write. And again in the channeling
27:11
Speaker 2: process of just being open, this story started to come
27:14
Speaker 2: out and I just started to write it. So it
27:20
Speaker 2: came out. I you know, I had a wellness center,
27:25
Speaker 2: so I was able to sort of market it to
27:27
Speaker 2: my students and clients and people that would appreciate the
27:33
Speaker 2: story and I never thought back then that I would
27:37
Speaker 2: write another one or that it would be a series.
27:41
Speaker 2: But you know, as the world changes, things evolve. And
27:48
Speaker 2: what happened was I started to notice all these streaming channels,
27:54
Speaker 2: right Netflix, Hulu, all these streaming channels, and how you
28:00
Speaker 2: get into a series of something and watch it and
28:04
Speaker 2: just want to binge it. And I started thinking, you
28:09
Speaker 2: know what, I think there's other accidental Yoghini series and
28:13
Speaker 2: I could not just see them as a book, but
28:15
Speaker 2: I could see them as movies or TV shows that
28:20
Speaker 2: you know, a different heroine each season. So I decided
28:25
Speaker 2: to start doing a series. And so I'm putting it
28:30
Speaker 2: out there into the universe that somebody that is involved
28:34
Speaker 2: with one of these channels finds them and wants to
28:38
Speaker 2: have that conversation.
28:39
Speaker 1: As we said, your latest iterations are Padma and the
28:43
Speaker 1: new release of Kristen. Let's start with Padma, her path
28:46
Speaker 1: and how yoga changed her life.
28:49
Speaker 2: Padma is a young mom. Whilst in the beginning of
28:53
Speaker 2: the book, she's getting married. She is an Indian American girl.
28:59
Speaker 2: She is is all about the life plan that she
29:05
Speaker 2: and her husband have uh and immediately in chapter two
29:12
Speaker 2: she's a mom with two young kids, and life has
29:17
Speaker 2: changed in a way that she didn't foresee and she's
29:21
Speaker 2: a little bit stressed. And what happens in the book
29:29
Speaker 2: is that somebody, somebody that she meets, starts talking about
29:37
Speaker 2: his wife doing prenatal yoga and postnatal yoga and how
29:43
Speaker 2: it's helped her. And she asks her mother, and her
29:48
Speaker 2: mother is pretty rejective of the stool of the idea
29:52
Speaker 2: of yoga, and it's it takes her into this inquiry about, well,
29:59
Speaker 2: why why does mom not want me to look into yoga.
30:02
Speaker 2: There's a family secret there that's revealed about yoga, and
30:08
Speaker 2: so through that process she does she gets into this
30:13
Speaker 2: practice and she goes actually back to the motherland, back
30:17
Speaker 2: to India, and travels through India with her yoga teacher
30:22
Speaker 2: on a retreat, on a spiritual retreat where she's learning
30:27
Speaker 2: about the different types of yoga Hata yoga, Bakhta yoga,
30:30
Speaker 2: Jana yoga, Karma yoga, and raja yoga, and she's understanding
30:36
Speaker 2: that these are that the practice of yoga is so
30:39
Speaker 2: deep and so profound. And what transpires while in India
30:45
Speaker 2: is something that changes her life, which was pretty good actually,
30:51
Speaker 2: Other than the stress of being a mom, her life
30:53
Speaker 2: was beautiful. But what happens is she finds a life
30:57
Speaker 2: purpose or a life calling that she winds up coming
31:02
Speaker 2: home with. So it gives her her dharma and her
31:05
Speaker 2: and her life path. So that's the synopsis of that.
31:10
Speaker 1: And she also learns the meaning of her name.
31:13
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, that's a big part of her story. Her
31:18
Speaker 2: yoga teacher says, I see you coming on the trip,
31:21
Speaker 2: and I see you learning or discovering the true nature
31:26
Speaker 2: of your name or the depth of your name. I
31:28
Speaker 2: can't remember how I wrote it, and she does wonderful.
31:35
Speaker 1: How does Kristen's journey differ from Padma's.
31:39
Speaker 2: Kristen's a single girl. As I had mentioned earlier, she
31:43
Speaker 2: works in corporate America, and she has physical issues with
31:48
Speaker 2: her body. So in the story for Kristin, it's somebody
31:53
Speaker 2: that gets involved with yoga due to a physical problem.
31:57
Speaker 2: In Podma, she gets involved more from stress and mental issues.
32:04
Speaker 2: So I kind of dive into the practices from different
32:08
Speaker 2: aspects so that people can see why you might start
32:15
Speaker 2: a yoga practice, not just because I think a lot
32:19
Speaker 2: of people erroneously still feel even today that yoga's for
32:24
Speaker 2: people that are flexible and Actually, yoga is what inflexible
32:30
Speaker 2: people need to do. And that's not just physically, that's mentally.
32:34
Speaker 2: If your mind is not flexible, you go into a
32:37
Speaker 2: yoga practice to become more flexible physically mentally, and once
32:43
Speaker 2: you do that, then it opens up to this spiritual realm.
32:46
Speaker 2: And so I wanted people to see that. And I
32:49
Speaker 2: already know what the next story is going to be,
32:52
Speaker 2: the next accidental Yoghini, and it's another layer.
32:55
Speaker 1: Wonderful, wonderful when to anticipate publishing.
33:00
Speaker 2: It's formulating right now. This is the first actually, Victoris,
33:04
Speaker 2: it's the first time something's formulating and not just I'm
33:06
Speaker 2: sitting down open writing. So I feel I feel pretty confident.
33:13
Speaker 2: I know what this story is going to be about,
33:18
Speaker 2: and I will share with everybody. It's most likely the
33:22
Speaker 2: story of somebody who learns yoga in a rehabilitation center
33:28
Speaker 2: for drug and alcohol addiction.
33:30
Speaker 1: Wonderful. And when are you going to have the screenplays
33:34
Speaker 1: ready to pitch to Netflix?
33:37
Speaker 2: And have them ready in a minute? I actually a
33:39
Speaker 2: radio TV Film major in college, so if somebody wants them,
33:44
Speaker 2: they can happen.
33:46
Speaker 3: To night.
33:48
Speaker 2: So that's not a big deal. I could be ready. Yeah,
33:52
Speaker 2: So if you're listening Netflix or whoever, I'm ready.
33:58
Speaker 1: Both Padma and Chris reflect discovery and healing journeys for women.
34:05
Speaker 1: This message is so important, especially after the challenges the
34:08
Speaker 1: current political climate has created for women. What message would
34:13
Speaker 1: you offer concerning this?
34:16
Speaker 2: You know, I was in Peru in twenty nineteen with
34:20
Speaker 2: a group of women Victor and we were at the
34:23
Speaker 2: Sacred Moon Temple and what came to me then was
34:28
Speaker 2: our time for playing small on the planet is over.
34:32
Speaker 2: We're we are the ones that will heal the planet,
34:35
Speaker 2: and we need to step up, and we need to
34:37
Speaker 2: step into our true purposes and roles. And I've shared
34:42
Speaker 2: that with many women since. And you know, this goes
34:48
Speaker 2: back very far. Women on the planet took a back
34:53
Speaker 2: seat and many of many of the women on the
34:59
Speaker 2: planet are still doing that, and we in order for
35:05
Speaker 2: our planet to really truly heal, I believe in my
35:10
Speaker 2: belief system that we are leaving an era of duality
35:15
Speaker 2: that the Yogis call collusia. I believe we're leaving that.
35:19
Speaker 2: I believe we're coming into an era of oneness. And
35:22
Speaker 2: so it's not about women or the divine feminine overshadowing
35:28
Speaker 2: men or the divine masculine. It's about marriage or a
35:32
Speaker 2: union of the two that integrate into unity consciousness. And
35:37
Speaker 2: so until women wake up and come to that point
35:43
Speaker 2: enough women, we're not gonna find that integration. I think,
35:49
Speaker 2: if anything, some of the current situations have ignited or
35:54
Speaker 2: sparked more women to awaken, and so I see that
35:58
Speaker 2: actually as a positive thing.
36:01
Speaker 1: So may it be, So may it be. The series
36:06
Speaker 1: also looks at second chapters, significant life changes that both
36:11
Speaker 1: women and men experience as they reach their late thirties
36:14
Speaker 1: and early forties. How should we approach and embrace those changes?
36:21
Speaker 2: I would say with just be open, right, openness. The
36:26
Speaker 2: only constant is change, right, That's the only thing, And
36:31
Speaker 2: an energy is always changing and shifting into different forms.
36:36
Speaker 2: So I think we owe it to ourselves to just
36:40
Speaker 2: be open.
36:42
Speaker 1: And how do we recognize those second chapters when they're
36:45
Speaker 1: presented to us.
36:49
Speaker 2: One of the things I've realized in my life, if
36:54
Speaker 2: I'm not feeling inspired, if I'm not feeling flow, if
36:58
Speaker 2: i feel stagnated, that something needs to shift and change.
37:03
Speaker 2: So I would say, if you're feeling that way in
37:05
Speaker 2: your life, if you're feeling stuck, stagnated, uninspired, you need
37:12
Speaker 2: to find a way to be open to shifting into
37:18
Speaker 2: this next stage of your life, and there's many methods
37:24
Speaker 2: of that, so I don't want to limit somebody's ideas
37:28
Speaker 2: of that. You know, yoga could be could be something
37:32
Speaker 2: if you don't have a yoga practice, but there's many
37:35
Speaker 2: ways to do that.
37:37
Speaker 1: And for both of us personally, it involved spiritual acknowledgment
37:42
Speaker 1: and growth of spirit, which is a very special and
37:47
Speaker 1: very beautiful thing. What would you like readers to take
37:50
Speaker 1: away from the Accidental Yoghini series.
37:55
Speaker 2: I would like people, I would really love people who
38:00
Speaker 2: who don't practice yoga to read the book and start
38:07
Speaker 2: to open their mind their perception of what the practice
38:11
Speaker 2: is or could be for them. I'd like people to
38:16
Speaker 2: take away from the books that your journey is ongoing
38:22
Speaker 2: and that the possibilities of opening to your highest potential
38:27
Speaker 2: are always there. So it's about you putting yourself in
38:32
Speaker 2: a position where you can access that.
38:36
Speaker 1: Absolutely tell us about One Yoga Center and what you
38:40
Speaker 1: offer there.
38:42
Speaker 2: The brick and mortar of what was One Yoga Center
38:46
Speaker 2: closed in twenty twenty two. It was a yoga and
38:50
Speaker 2: wellness center. So what I've said is that in the
38:54
Speaker 2: closing of that brick and mortar. It's allowed me to
38:58
Speaker 2: offer things to the greater community, people outside of the area.
39:03
Speaker 2: So I do a lot of well I did a
39:09
Speaker 2: lot of retreats. My mother has an illness. I'm focusing
39:13
Speaker 2: on taking care of her right now, but a lot
39:16
Speaker 2: of healing retreats to these power places on the planet.
39:22
Speaker 2: And then I also offer different trainings and things locally,
39:27
Speaker 2: still under the one Yoga Center, I call it one
39:32
Speaker 2: Yoga and Wellness. Now I kind of lopped off center
39:34
Speaker 2: and put in wellness, so it covers more of the
39:38
Speaker 2: expansion of what I do locally and then globally.
39:44
Speaker 1: Do you also train yoga teachers?
39:47
Speaker 2: I had a yoga school from two thousand and three
39:51
Speaker 2: until twenty twenty two. I still can train people. However,
39:58
Speaker 2: I stopped paying the exorbit dues that we're required from
40:02
Speaker 2: the National Yoga Alliance, so I don't have a school
40:08
Speaker 2: that's accredited with Yoga Alliance, but I can still train.
40:13
Speaker 1: My guest, Reverend doctor Tracy Alschaeffer, we're talking about her
40:16
Speaker 1: Accidental Yoghini series. We'll be back with more after these
40:20
Speaker 1: words on the Own Times Radio Network.
40:23
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Speaker 1: Back on Destination Unlimited. My guest this week, my dear friend,
43:22
Speaker 1: the Reverend doctor Tracy Alshaffer. We're talking about her Accidental
43:27
Speaker 1: Yoghini series and all of the wonderful work that she does.
43:30
Speaker 1: One of your practices that you employ is Thai yoga
43:34
Speaker 1: and Thai yoga healing. How does Thai yoga differ from
43:38
Speaker 1: Hafa yoga and other forms.
43:40
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a deep question. We could go a couple
43:43
Speaker 2: different places with that, but I'm I'm gonna hit. I'm
43:46
Speaker 2: gonna hit this direction. The Thai yoga that I offers
43:51
Speaker 2: tioga body work, which ties in with my massage therapy
43:56
Speaker 2: and my energy healing work. So I've traveled to Thailand
44:00
Speaker 2: and I think eight or nine times. I love Thailand.
44:04
Speaker 2: My father was stationed in Thailand during the Vietnam War,
44:07
Speaker 2: and he always talked about Thailand. We had a tik
44:10
Speaker 2: Buddha in our house. So in two thousand and nine
44:13
Speaker 2: I took him back and had some of these amazing
44:18
Speaker 2: Thai body work sessions up in Chang Mai. These people
44:23
Speaker 2: are masters of working on the body, and in Thailand,
44:29
Speaker 2: it's a regular preventative measure, right, they get these with
44:37
Speaker 2: regularity to keep themselves body, you know, the physical body
44:43
Speaker 2: in check. We go there after a long plane ride,
44:47
Speaker 2: we're a big old knotted mess, and then they have
44:50
Speaker 2: to beat it out of us in these sessions. But
44:55
Speaker 2: I went to Thailand, I fell in love with Thai bodywork.
45:00
Speaker 2: It was already a massage therapist, and I then came
45:04
Speaker 2: home I wound up taking a Thaie bodywork training. So
45:08
Speaker 2: now I conduct a tie yoga bodywork training for other
45:14
Speaker 2: therapists that want to. It's accredited through the National Board
45:19
Speaker 2: if you're a massage therapist, but also through Yoga Alliance
45:22
Speaker 2: you can get credits if you're for continuing education. So
45:27
Speaker 2: I offer those two private clients, but I also offer
45:30
Speaker 2: the trainings to people in an authentic tie yoga bodywork
45:38
Speaker 2: floor matt session.
45:41
Speaker 1: And you said they beat the stuff out of you
45:43
Speaker 1: with it, it's not really being beaten right.
45:45
Speaker 2: Now, Well, they're pretty tough. These I'm telling you, these
45:49
Speaker 2: Thai women, they're tiny and I'm I'm tiny too, and
45:54
Speaker 2: the strength that they have, and it's just that they
45:58
Speaker 2: just know how to move the energy. But when you
46:03
Speaker 2: have such knots and your connective tissue and your muscles
46:09
Speaker 2: are just so chronically tight, it does hurt initially when
46:15
Speaker 2: they first do it. Now, I've kind of stripped mind
46:18
Speaker 2: down for clients to be a more Americanized version, so
46:22
Speaker 2: I don't go in and beat people up, but you
46:25
Speaker 2: could expect that in Thailand. It's pretty it feels pretty hard,
46:31
Speaker 2: but after maybe the first or second session, it doesn't
46:35
Speaker 2: hurt as much because you're releasing. The stuff is releasing
46:40
Speaker 2: and it's leaving the body.
46:43
Speaker 1: Tell us about quantum healing, what is it and how
46:45
Speaker 1: is it practiced?
46:48
Speaker 2: Well, quantum refers to really anything in the energy field,
46:54
Speaker 2: right in the quantum field, so not just in the
46:57
Speaker 2: here and now, but the passed through ancestry, bloodline and
47:03
Speaker 2: the future. So when I got my reiki master, what
47:11
Speaker 2: I felt was through my own shamanic practices that I've
47:18
Speaker 2: I had done for so long, thirty years or more,
47:24
Speaker 2: I realized that what I wanted to offer people was
47:30
Speaker 2: more than the reiki hand positions or the reiki symbols,
47:34
Speaker 2: and what that had I wanted to incorporate light language,
47:40
Speaker 2: star language. I wanted to incorporate not just the seven chakras,
47:46
Speaker 2: but the chakras beyond the body. I work with a
47:48
Speaker 2: twelve chakra system which implements the Earth star for bloodline
47:54
Speaker 2: and ancestral healing, and also the upper chakras nine and nine, eight, nine,
48:03
Speaker 2: eleven above the head that are karmic energy, things that
48:11
Speaker 2: we incarnate from past life and things like that. So
48:16
Speaker 2: my quantum healing is just that it's anything in the
48:19
Speaker 2: quantum field that needs healing, and so I implement various different
48:26
Speaker 2: strategies which could be hands on things from my integrated
48:34
Speaker 2: energy massage therapy, two reiki, two shamanic practices that I've
48:44
Speaker 2: learned in my travels all over the world.
48:48
Speaker 1: And you had mentioned making several trips to Thailand. Your
48:52
Speaker 1: path has led you to leading retreats around the world.
48:55
Speaker 1: Please tell us about some of the magical destinations that
48:57
Speaker 1: you've taken seekers and what the experience as we're like.
49:01
Speaker 2: Oh, well, I have taken people to Thailand a few times,
49:05
Speaker 2: and to me, that's the land of joy. It's really
49:08
Speaker 2: joy and pleasure, from Thai food, to Thai bodywork, to
49:14
Speaker 2: the Buddhist traditions that are just such steeped in loving kindness.
49:20
Speaker 2: It's really a joyful place. So when we actually play,
49:23
Speaker 2: we have fun, and it's a really joyous journey. When
49:26
Speaker 2: we go to Thailand, I've taken people to Peru through
49:33
Speaker 2: maybe three, three or four times. Peru is a different
49:39
Speaker 2: type of journey. You're high in the Andes Mountains. You
49:43
Speaker 2: have the Kiro shamanic traditions there, but you also have
49:46
Speaker 2: this whole sacred valley which is just lined with ink
49:50
Speaker 2: and ruins, and the energy in some of these power
49:54
Speaker 2: places is so palpable. When I take people there, they
50:00
Speaker 2: really get rooted in some of these practices and and
50:07
Speaker 2: have a different type of spiritual journey that develops there.
50:13
Speaker 2: I've taken people to Bali. Bali to me is like
50:16
Speaker 2: a blend of a beautiful blend. I think of India
50:20
Speaker 2: and Thailand. You have the spirituality from India, but then
50:24
Speaker 2: you have this joy and compassion from Thailand, and and
50:30
Speaker 2: it's really a beautiful blend. So I've taken people to
50:35
Speaker 2: those places. I've taken a where else of Glastonbury, which
50:41
Speaker 2: is the world's tart chakra. I've taken people there with
50:45
Speaker 2: me and just fell in love with the English countryside.
50:50
Speaker 2: In fact, i've I've feel called to live there. I
50:55
Speaker 2: don't know that that will happen in this lifetime, but
51:00
Speaker 2: but I know at some point I need to be
51:03
Speaker 2: a steward of that sacred place. I probably was in
51:07
Speaker 2: another life, but I feel that I need to again
51:10
Speaker 2: and I right now I am booking a retreat, a
51:15
Speaker 2: healing retreat in Egypt which will take us down the Nile,
51:21
Speaker 2: will start between the pause of the Sphinx for an
51:25
Speaker 2: initiation and will end after this journey down the Nile
51:30
Speaker 2: to various temples through Luxor and Karnak and file will
51:34
Speaker 2: come back to Cairo and be inside the Great Pyramid
51:39
Speaker 2: for a two hour private healing event. So I'm booking
51:44
Speaker 2: people for that now for October of twenty twenty five,
51:47
Speaker 2: and that Egypt is maybe one of the penultimate destinations
51:55
Speaker 2: for I think spiritual healing for me. When I went there,
52:01
Speaker 2: it was a huge remembrance journey and connecting with people
52:09
Speaker 2: that I had known in these past lives. There in
52:12
Speaker 2: Egypt finding them now in this life and just how
52:19
Speaker 2: impactful that was. Egypt to me has many mysteries. And
52:26
Speaker 2: I have a documentary series called The Earth Chakras on
52:30
Speaker 2: my YouTube channel where I go through some of these
52:34
Speaker 2: power places and you can see and learn about them
52:37
Speaker 2: a little bit more.
52:39
Speaker 1: And what is the name of that channel on.
52:42
Speaker 2: My YouTube channel, which is you can either YouTube my
52:46
Speaker 2: name or put in t Alshafer my first initial last name,
52:50
Speaker 2: I think is the channel name. But you'll find the
52:54
Speaker 2: Earth Chakras documentary series there. And I have one through
52:58
Speaker 2: five completed, finished the Egypt one last.
53:01
Speaker 1: Month, wonderful. What do you do on Tuesdays?
53:06
Speaker 2: You know what? I guess. People are always telling me
53:12
Speaker 2: you're so busy, and I go, really, I think. I
53:17
Speaker 2: think when I'm inspired and I love something, it's first
53:21
Speaker 2: of all, it's not work. It's just something that I
53:25
Speaker 2: do because I love to do it, and I just
53:28
Speaker 2: managed to get a lot done. I don't know. I'm
53:30
Speaker 2: a Gemini. I work both worlds. I figure it out.
53:36
Speaker 1: I agree with you, if you love what you do,
53:38
Speaker 1: then you don't work a single day. Do you consider
53:41
Speaker 1: yourself a modern day shaman?
53:46
Speaker 2: So I stopped using the word shaman, and I started
53:53
Speaker 2: because of some work that I do and have done
53:56
Speaker 2: the past since twenty fifteen with a woman named Salara.
54:00
Speaker 2: I use the word true one similar I think to
54:07
Speaker 2: how I felt about reiki. I you know, as a writer,
54:10
Speaker 2: I think you understand language and the energy behind words
54:18
Speaker 2: sometimes can be limiting to the truth of the totality
54:23
Speaker 2: of something, and so I love shamanic practices. I would
54:29
Speaker 2: never call myself though, a modern day shaman. I call
54:34
Speaker 2: myself a true one.
54:36
Speaker 1: Beautiful, my guest, my dear friend, Reverend doctor Tracy Alshaffer.
54:41
Speaker 1: We've been talking about her latest book, The Accidentally Yogini Padma. Tracy,
54:46
Speaker 1: please share with our listeners where they can get all
54:48
Speaker 1: of your books and find out more about your wonderful work.
54:52
Speaker 2: My website is one yogacenter dot net and that's O
54:57
Speaker 2: n e. Yoga Centered dot I also have Tracy Alshaeffer
55:03
Speaker 2: dot com as a website that forwards to the same thing,
55:06
Speaker 2: so you can find me and all of my work
55:08
Speaker 2: and my retreats there. And all of the books are
55:12
Speaker 2: available on Amazon in paperback and some of them in kindle.
55:18
Speaker 1: And please again and share about the book signing on
55:20
Speaker 1: the twenty second of December. For those of us in
55:23
Speaker 1: the New York, New Jersey.
55:24
Speaker 2: Area, Yeah, come on out to Black Forest Acres in
55:29
Speaker 2: Hamilton's Square on Sunday, December twenty second. I'll be there
55:34
Speaker 2: between twelve and two, although if people keep coming, I'll
55:37
Speaker 2: stay longer. I think they're open till four on Sunday.
55:40
Speaker 2: They are a holistic grocery store and they offer many
55:47
Speaker 2: beautiful supplements and different things. So I will be there
55:52
Speaker 2: with books where you can bring your books and I'll
55:54
Speaker 2: sign them either way.
55:56
Speaker 1: I see. It was wonderful to reconnect with you today
55:59
Speaker 1: and share all these wonderful stories that you have and
56:02
Speaker 1: all the experiences that you've had, and the message the
56:05
Speaker 1: most importantly, the message that you have for our world.
56:07
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
56:09
Speaker 2: Thank you, Victor, and thank.
56:11
Speaker 1: You for joining us on Destination Unlimited. I'm Victor the
56:15
Speaker 1: Voice Furman. Have a wonderful week