everyone michel grand marquis here welcomes a positive energy bringing enlightening television for your evolving life is a spiritual journey therefore everyone has a meaningful story to tell stock today she has really found her calling serving others as a spiritual leader teacher seeker and counsellor wait till you hear her powerfully moving and inspirational story positive energy starts right now so you get are welcomed positive energy and i have you here thank you for having me so you have a really compelling story and a powerful story i think it's like a story of courage that i really personally find inspiring you were raised in an ultra orthodox jewish home and community which led to an arranged marriage and at a young age you left all of that as well as you came out as a gay woman so tell us a little bit of paint a picture of your upbringing and that story for us it was an extremely insular community we spoke and our calendars were completely guided by the moon and the jewish calendar and secular days didn't really mean that much i mean we knew the date because we lived in america but we didn't i'm living in a bubble little bit yes yeah strongly extremely insular and i we saw no newspapers t v shows internet wasn't around that time but we just there was nothing from the outside world that penetrated this insular so how did that feel for you did it feel like it wished restrictive to you or was just all that you know it's the only thing i know i i didn't know any better or different i don't know if it's better but different yeah so what what was the moment or series of moments that became sort of the impetus for you beginning to think outside the box a little bit think differently that led you to ultimately leave that community and that life so i think the last straw kind of the thing that actually made me leave is the fact that i'm genderqueer and in that community there's a very black and white world the synagogue is divided by men and women even sometimes meals at people's homes were divided by men and women girls played with the girls the boys played with the boys and there was always this kind of divide and even later as i was exploring the outside world a little keep showing up and choose one was was not something that i could keep doing because it's the last moment you know that was like the guy thing so that it got so uncomfortable it just went so against who you were that you just couldn't know it went against who i was who i am and so like every time i walked in i had to choose a side and it's like i'm not and i'm not and i am and i am like i'm both and i'm neither and so it felt a third option or more options to that yes and there were none and so i couldn't keep being part of that gotcha so you were very you were young and so how looking back and forth hindsight is twenty twenty but how did you find the courage what was the hardest part about that what was your self talk i guess like at that time that got you to that place i think that i i don't really think that i knew how courageous i was at the time i really didn't i was twenty three with three kids and you know i mean now i think about of my children are that age and  like imagine them with three kids as a single parents it's terrifying but  i'm really lucky that i have incredible in a strength and i kept going inside and i couldn't live in places where i wasn't true to myself and so the own comfortability of being not true to myself was harder than being uncomfortable and staying and i say this about leaving communities about people who divorce anytime i work with people it's i always feel that it's it's when the pain of staying becomes greater than the pain of leaving then that leaving actually occurs gotcha but it's an internal start as an internal process obviously and i like to say that was almost your soul or your spirit sort of nudging you talking to you  coming through and saying ah no no no no no it was definitely that it was definitely that it was it was you know sexuality and spirituality are so connected and we as a society and i think because of organized religion have kind of divided that we have forgotten that our essence our spirit is also our essence and that looks at gender or sexuality or whatever that looks like for different people but that it's so interconnected and when we try to divide that we lose ourselves in the process yeah right this is a spiritual journey as we say this would have all falls within that context for looking at it that way we're saying there are no coincidences and this happened for a reason looking back on it what did you learn i'm sure you've you speak of this when you speak to people individually  how are you better for it i realized that god could not be contained for me that there was this incredible thing outside of self that had nothing to do with organized religion and yet organized religion gives us fellowship right so so there's like this but what i learned from myself was that god can be contained  begins nobody owns god nobody has the rights to or a special connection to we all have that same equal beautiful connection that way yeah and the more we the more we work on ourselves in that way and the more we give it voice the stronger it becomes in us and the stronger we connect with others in that way i'm sure all that than just dawned on you overnight around that time like a giant aha moment i'm sure that something that developed once you were free from that environment had a chance was there a period of healing for you i know them sure there was a transition but how did you feel did you do something special or was it more that relationship to spirit that helped you to heal from that if there was any of that involved so i started there be when i was twenty two and i was still married at the time and i think it was maybe a year or year and a half after my marriage where like the incredible tension of that transition of leaving the marriage was done and i walked into their feet i said to my therapist ok so we can talk about that and she said to me i'm not a rabbi and i said i know and she said but this is therapy we don't talk about god here and i said but this is my motional journey and she said yeah i said and i need to talk about thought through my emotional journey so are we going to have this conversation or not and not be a logical debate it's just your personal experience you wanted to share and i needed to figure it out i needed a place that would be safe to talk about it and i remember we literally had like this back and forth for five ten minutes where i was like she was like yeah but but i'm not like this isn't what we do in therapy and i kept saying if you want me to be emotionally healthy which is what your job is and we need to talk about god and and that's how i kind of work through it it sounds like it helped you to take on that role once you were done had done some of that healing it sounds like some of the work that you're now doing right helping people to process and understand more deeply their relationship to self and their relationship to the universe to spirit you know i mean i think that sometimes when people hear what i'm doing so i'm a coach right i'm a traditional coach and i'm a spiritual counselor and i'm a motivational speaker and i'm going to fish in and so people say oh you do all these different things and i'm like it sounds like i'm doing all these different things but really i do one thing which is i enable individuals to find their spirit in whatever form that takes and i help them be their best selves through it right so i create this space and sometimes it's by for sharing their wedding and sometimes it's by creating a baby naming and sometimes it's by doing the spiritual counseling session whatever it looks like there's always the kind of the the depth of it or the core of it is can we create space where we can talk about what really  matters i know you're a graduate of one spirit interface seminary in new york so i was like to give them a shout out because it's a beautiful place and what a perfect space to learn and to grow and to find your path that way but talk a little bit about your life now just in terms of your your personal life your current relationship you're in a happy loving blended relation situation so say a little bit about that so i'm with a wonderful woman we've been together for eight years almost eight years we've been together for almost eight years and we live together we have blended our families so our two old as we say that we have five kids together and we each parent of four but we parent did three together and one on each side so like my son was already out of the house when we moved in together and her daughter was in college when i met her so the three younger ones we parents of together and so we have this now they're now they're all adults but when we we met they were and are to say that it's it's just wow it's amazing i sometimes i look back in my life and i and i wonder if that city girl who left a twenty three and had these three kids she can barely manage practice judaism what's that like for you now what is your what is your practice like now for yourself personally it's very different so i i actually say when people ask me where i fall in they're like so do you consider yourself former constructor and as conservative they have all these like label labels and then names yeah right and so mike you know i consider myself a practicing jew whatever that looks like and it looks different and feels different every day i love the spirit of what judaism gives us and the the moments that we can create sacred space so we just passed young people were and it's the day that you know traditionally the story goes that that moses came down with the tablets and and and he saw the golden calf and he was angry and he broke the tablets and then you went back up and he said to god please forgive them for give them any kept begging god to and so i love walking into that day and saying the essence of that yet is it's human it's universal it's everything we should all every once a month whichever day of forgiveness i think yes in the in the space where we forgive ourselves for all the stuff that we mess up and because we all do you know we we there's this beautiful story  to give you these three things i'm going to give you and it's the three hebrew words for certain right and he says i'm going to give you all of that let's make a trade you know what i'm good for let's trade and he says i'm going to give you these things and you know what you're going to give me and he comes up with three words for forgiveness three different hebrew words again for god to forgive and then he says and you think that we're going to have an even tra this is not going to be an even trade this is not like i'm giving you this and you give me that you're also going to add health and happiness and health and prosperity and children that's what he says and it's this beautiful conversation that he has with god in front of the entire community and for me i was driving down here and i was singing the song right because i was like hey you know i have this hour and a half drive i should i should be doing something and so i was thinking the song and i shifted the words because for me those hebrew words don't necessarily  connect anymore but what i was saying was i can i'm going to give you my ego and the times that i mess up and the things that i do when i think i'm right but it's the same concept of how do we show up in ways where imagine if we did do that once a month where we forgave ourselves for those things and shifted our perspective be nice to show up as at the humans we were born to be yeah you know so i love that i love where everything converge is and i love the essence that it boils down to in that way so you know as we talk about spirituality and you're an interfaith minister and a person of faith that way what is sort of more of your main message around spirituality as it is beyond religion really in that and beyond tradition we are co creators and so we get to create and we get to connect and i think my main message is usually to breathe because when we breathe we remember and i find that with myself and i find that with other people like we take a deep breath and yeah some i call that mindfulness some i call it an adaptation but it's taking a pause and connecting because our essence li everything else is trappings you know there's the story we have time first another story a short one so the this guy shows up to one rabbi and he says hey teach  me the torah teach me the bible at one i'm standing here with one leg on one foot and and and the rabbi throws them out and then he shows up to this other advice shows up to a hello and he says the same thing in health of love your neighbor as you love yourself the rest is commentary right and so when you ask me like i'm standing on one foot like what's the story to me it's about you're the essence of spirit remember that beautiful so that's sort of the again the essence of the main part of your message what do you say to others in the community i mean is that your main message to them as well so that you can so that there can be healing yes and no right so yes that's still my main message and and then i ask them too because sometimes the the healing that needs to happen isn't fellowship because it's beyond personal connection to divine right the first step is to like hey who are we as human beings as spiritual beings and how do we connect a bad and then the bigger healing that sometimes needs to happen whether they're old g b t q or coming from a religious community like i did then the healing that needs to happen isn't fellowship and so like you can have your own spiritual path and then find fellowships where you feel comfortable and because i think that organized religion is there because it provides such incredible fellowship and so healing needs to happen there and so i encourage them to find places where there are safety and is that so that part of your work some of the work that you're doing with groups or as you go around or more one on one so i do run i do facilitate a q meeting in new york city once a month but but usually the work that i do with people's one on one and when i work with them i encourage them to do that and the work that i do with people is not necessarily only in my office you know the beautiful thing about about technology today online world and that world the verse can really go anywhere yeah i have clients from everywhere and it's you know google hangout sky face time whatever or whatever your medicine is let's do it you know and it just happens i'm always pleased when people really do find their calling and they follow their bliss and and so your services you're just so in alignment now with what it is that you're doing in every single way spiritually and professionally so i really i really acknowledge you for that and so i know you're going to share a song  chance of a prayer a singing prayer as is so common in judy's duties in introductions in hebrew or in english so can you share a little bit about that as you're going to have there's this beautiful  prayer it's the it's in the morning and it said traditionally every morning and it basically says that the soul that you've been given that you gave me actually the soul that you gave me it's pure and holy in judaism there isn't this concept of original  the concept is that we are pure and holy and regardless of what we do regardless of who we become it doesn't matter that soul stays and so it's a sin credible and the chant is my own though there's there are numerous chance around that are that that use those words and so i'll start with the hebrew and then do a little bit  me you have gifted me  makes me remember who i am instantly instantly it clicks you right back yeah and so that yeah like everything else just falls away the the the things that are happening in the world both naturally and and otherwise and helps me stay connected and grounded yeah yeah yeah gives you that direct internal experience and we talk so much here are around energy and vibration and so it is like that hold some of that high really high you're vibration and as so is there anything else you want to say about the work that you do so that people might become interested in case there in case they're on passed that really are parallel to what you've experienced  how can that happen for people you know it's easy they can call or e mail me but say something about the rituals or the ceremonies that you do because that's such a great part of what you do as well way and we create a personalized ceremony for them specifically i do the same thing and baby blessings and also funerals for i get to know the family and created a ritual where it's not just we're going to say these prayers i'm going to do these things but rather who is this person and how do we say goodbye right and and for a young child who is who are these parents and the families that are coming together that this child is not connecting and how do they want to be with the struggle right and so it's all about who are we and how do we show that in ritual because ritual so powerful in judaism we find that i mean the community i grew up in and our church still everything everything really well for everything there's a prayer there's a blessing for everything and there's something and the reason that exists a similar job like i started singing and i went in right automatically which will does that if we do certain rituals over and over again we go to that space so there's something in the repetition of it as well yeah that helps us disconnect from our analytical conscious mind yes in some way in some way and i think it's a little rituals that we even don't realize we do you know when we come into the house and maybe we kiss our children on the cheek great it's just that kind of second  it can become rote like any ritual can but it can also be oh yeah i'm home right yes when you infuse intention and meaning behind it it's like putting that in motion it's like intention in motion you know in action that way yeah ritual vegas's makes a powerful yeah because ritual creates that we create the space for it right but by showing up to a wedding or or a baby  really a rite of passage in some way i've done ceremonies for people who turn fifty for empty nest like a variety of rituals for for for individuals who want to create but why not why not mark the moment in a positive way why not  helps you reflect helps us reflect and it also allows us to be witnessed and in moments of deep transition we need to be witness yeah life is so full of just the day to day kind of mundine stuff i think there is something absolute power of about stopping and marking the moment and making it significant and you'll remember it forever that way on our deathbed that's what will remember those heightened meaningful moments where we created sacred space with people we love with people we love people we love but actually yeah i think it's also we'll also remember the things we did repetitiously because we don't usually remember a memory of one thing we remember memories because they happen so many times they become part of our memory bank and so that's which will so honey i thank you for the work that you are doing in the world and continue to do that and it really has been  or wrapping up another enlightening show i hope we inspire do with her flecked upon your life as a spiritual journey of learning and growth remember what i always say you are a bundle of potential just waiting to be revealed reach out to me for mind set coaching thank you for watching and join me next time on positive ener