JI: Eighteen years ago, when I was first told that my soaring hormone levels at age 42 signaled the end of my childbearing years, and there was no medical treatment to help me, I was devastated. I thought I was being punished. But looking back I was really being guided to bring healing to myself, to my family line, and hopefully to pass on all that I learned through this challenge to anyone who might find it useful. I was also given the chance to re-claim my Jewish identity, and the precious inheritance of our beautiful tradition, which sadly, I knew nothing about. That feels as though I was given a chance to save my life, not because I had a life-threatening disease, but because my soul was starving for a more meaningful way of living.

JI: One of the greatest revelations of these last fifteen years of counseling women and couples has been seeing just how much our emotions and the yearning of the soul is mirrored in our biology; how eloquently the body speaks of everything we try to keep hidden from ourselves. In the midst of my pilgrimage to seek answers, I had a dream in which I was told that I had a cancerous tumor on my ovaries, and that it was a punishment for being too greedy and wanting a second child. That dream alerted me to the presence of what I have come to call our “inner Orphans” the parts of us that create suffering, that see life’s challenges as punishment. In my case it was a voice within me that said I didn’t deserve to have a good life when my brother and grandmothers and so many family members perished during the Holocaust.

JI.: I began with experimenting with food. Pretty much overnight I went from being a sugar and caffeine addict to juicing every morning. I started to become more aware of whether the food on my plate was going to help my body get stronger, or was it something that would deplete me of energy. That part was fairly easy, because I could see changes almost instantly. The emotional and spiritual piece of the work took a bit more courage. It meant strengthening what I call the Ultimate Mother voice inside me, which to me is the unconditionally loving wisdom of the Shekinah, the wisdom that is inscribed in our tissues, and is always accessible if we can allow ourselves to hear it. The OVUM (from Latin meaning egg) work, which evolved out of my own pilgrimage and through counseling women and couples for the last fifteen years, is a set of imagery exercises, movement sequences, food recommendations and other tools that help strengthen that voice of the Ultimate Mother, and the Visionary within us.

JI: Medical technology can be a useful tool, and like any tool it harms or helps heal us depending on how we use it. I see women going through several cycles of treatment when perhaps one could be sufficient, if they did the necessary preparation.

JI:There seems to be a great deal of confusion around the principles of mind body connection, and positive thinking. So many people I meet say, “I know I’m suppose to be positive but I can’t help feeling this treatment isn’t going to work and it’s going to be my fault.” Real healing happens when we create a safe space to hear whatever truth rises up in us at any moment. And that’s at the center of my work, permission to allow the Truth to rise up within us, and then choose the most compassionate, most useful course of action.