In this week's edition of Tranquility du Jour, I chat with Alisa Kennedy Jones on:
Redefining Midlife as The Empress Age
Alisa introduces the concept of The Empress Age—a powerful phase between career/motherhood and the so-called crone years. She reframes midlife as a time of immense creativity, wisdom, and generative energy, rather than decline or invisibility.
Navigating the Complexities of Perimenopause
With over 30 possible symptoms, perimenopause can be a confusing and isolating experience. Alisa emphasizes the importance of being your own advocate, finding knowledgeable healthcare providers, and recognizing that each woman's journey is unique.
The Power of Connection and Confidence in Career
Midlife brings professional reinvention, but also moments of doubt. Alisa shares her strategies for overcoming self-doubt, including borrowing confidence from role models, trusting that her future self will solve problems, and leading with curiosity in career transitions.
Finding Tranquility in the Midst of Change
Whether through daily yoga, walking meditations, magnesium for relaxation, or simply holding hands with a loved one, Alisa highlights the importance of grounding rituals. She encourages midlife women to reclaim their own stories and embrace curiosity as a tool for transformation.
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Grab your journal, a cuppa tea, and settle in for this week's inspiration.
Bespoke brand consultant and bestselling author Alisa Kennedy Jones is recognized as one of today's most insightful and original voices on brand intelligence. Fluent in five languages, her celebrated TEDx talk on epilepsy changed the way we think about creativity, electricity, and the brain, and her debut bestseller Gotham Girl, Interrupted became a global phenomenon in the field of narrative medicine. When not writing her next comedic novel Ellery Allbright Goes Dark, Alisa is having the best time ever heading up a variety of initiatives, including The Empress, gotham girl, and the midlife women's publishing house Empress Editions.
As a memoirist, blogger, and screenwriter, her words have been featured widely across national media outlets such as NPR, and TEDx, and as part of the Academy Award-nominated documentary CRIP CAMP, Executive Produced by Michelle & Barack Obama. An advocate for disability, neurodiversity, mental health, and epilepsy, her collection of comedic essays GOTHAM GIRL INTERRUPTED (Imagine/Penguin Random House) was a #1 new release on Amazonand is available everywhere books are sold as well as on Bookshop.org, IndieBound, and Barnes & Noble.
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Dateline NBC
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The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.