Positive Talk with Kevin McDonald and Michelle Wexelblat

0:00There is a moment in every life when you decide to rise, to stand taller than your fear, to speak louder than your doubt, to chase the vision that sets your soul on fire. This is that moment and here. We walk it together with stories that awaken voices that inspire and truce that set you free. This is positive talk with Kevin MacDonald where hope has a voice, and that voice is yours. And welcome to the show, everybody. We've got a great show for you. It's a matter of fact, Michelle. We have a series of great shows today. We actually do, we get to start the first one off strong. We have Michelle Wexelblatt here with us today. She is a Jewish priest. It has a website if you're curious, go to therapyden.com, where she helps work with people and connect them to their true selves. So welcome, Michelle. How are you? I'm doing role. I'm going to make a minor correction, and it's cut off because I added name and then it's priestess. It is very specific in the feminine.

1:05Okay. Very good. For those of us who have no earthly idea, what a Jewish priestess is, could you kind of enlighten me a little bit because I honestly don't know? Okay. If you go back and you read your Bible, you will see little mentions of where women had jobs to do around the temple and around community temples, and you get little snippets. Now, this is, you don't get a false visual of it because at the time of King Josiah, he decided that for political reasons, it made a good idea to consolidate power and to do it in a masculine patriarchal way, and worked very hard on removing all of the previous worship and work that you which priestesses did, and the worship of the feminine divine, which sometimes is called ashera, asherina, sun, light, all sorts of things. It's got many, many names, but you don't see it

2:11very much. Back in the pardon me, I have a friend. He is so excited to join. I'm glad that you mentioned that because there's not like anybody's stomach was gurgling. That was him saying, mom, I want up. This is my coworker. This name is serious. It's with me all the time. So there is a group that is called cohennet, and the practice of cohennet, many of you are familiar with the last name Cohen. Cohen in Hebrew means priestess, and there is a cohennet movement which is working on reclaiming and finding those things for what was the worship and the devotions and work that women did in the temple. Yeah, because I'm remembering in my reading of the Bible that there were the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and they were all men, and it was a very masculine-dominated society at the time. But that's not how it always was. Yeah, there was a

3:18time in which Judaism was a multi-gender worship, and we talk about how we look at God and God being not gendered in one way, and that in looking at the verbs, that the name that is used, sometimes it's feminine, sometimes it's masculine, sometimes it's neutral, but a lot of the pre-consolidation to a monotheistic religion, there was a lot of work in feminine worship and trying to rebuild what that was. And that goes back to a pre-robinic time of Judaism. That goes back to the time of the temples and living as tribes, so there was a lot of that, very much more of a indigenous shamanic work, because everybody had their own connection to the divine, and that is something that you still maintain today, is that there is nobody who has to stand between them and their conversations with God.

4:18You don't have to go to a rabbi to get forgiveness, you don't have to go to somebody to be your conduit, you can sit down and have a conversation, and your relationship with God is your relationship with God. Indeed, why do you think it is, and I know you've probably done some studying on this, but the Catholics have got the same problem, and that the priests have to be all men, and that's why they call them father, and stuff, but where do you think that we as a society went wrong, when we decided that with men's insecurity that caused them to say, oh no, we're the ones in charge, and the women can be nuns, or they can be priestesses, but they can't be at the same level as the men. Why do you think that is? Now I'm going to put on my social worker hat, and I am a licensed independent clinical social worker, masters in social work, I've been a clinician in

5:19private practice for almost 15 years now, before that I worked in community mental health in inner city communities, and that has put me in, and I do a lot of work with the two-spirit LGBTQIA plus community, and with inner city communities and multiracial and everything what you wind up with is a lot of trauma. Now when I say trauma, I'm not meaning capital T trauma, that is in there, but also neglect long-term issues, poverty, institutionalisms, and biases, and adverse life experiences, that's the that's the term that I like to use, is we all have adverse life experiences. I talk about you can't buy a new car and drive it for more than a year or two years before you pick up scratches and dense and rock, you know, mess and dirt. Why do we think we can go through life without the same? I don't know because we can't. And so lots of people will not admit or believe

6:22that they have had adverse life experiences, and like your car they don't believe that they need two nubs either, that they'll just fine, and only when they get to the point of something breaking though some people do that with their cars too, do they actually get stuff taken care of. So, putting on my clinician hat, my social worker hat, I like to look at systems, and social workers are very big systems theorists, and if you go back to the start of human kind, it was survivalist. There was a lot of that and a lot of lack of control, and a lot of lack of control and powerlessness leads us to this pendulum to where we are either having enough or we have scarcity, and scarcity mindset causes people to do a lot of things are not good on a community look. We each wind up as an individual worried about what our scarcity models are going to be, and if you go back through time, you've got lots of people who are trying to make sure that they

7:23have enough, but it's very egocentric, and if you go and you look through time, it has very much trauma-based and surround power and control, and for me what I believe happens is that at some point there was a decision made that only the learned folks, meaning people connected with God and priests and nubs and stuff were allowed to be educated, because it was much easier to control an uneducated topic. Which is why there was a time not too long ago where Bibles were very scarce, and they were considered the domain of the fathers and the priests, and that the masses would take their word for it, and because they didn't have access to the information themselves, am I right? Yep, and if you go along further in history, forward to the King James Bible, that is very much a political crowdsource document. He hired people to write particular pieces of it in order

8:27to send the messages that King James wanted to have in the forefront. So with each iteration and with each people writing it, and backwards with each people writing it, and recording what pieces of history that they wanted, you get particular vibes. But really what I think about were things went wrong is that none of this is looking at repair. We go from traumatized to traumatizing others, and back and forth, hi, look at this. Oh my gosh, my mom does the same thing, share the apple with the dog. I know he's a farmer's market and I get an apple when I have complete undivided attention until it is all done. Repair. Judaism has a system in it for repentance and repair, and we go through this every year between the New Year and our major day of

9:30repentance, Yom Kippur. And really, this is a thing that lots of people don't understand about this is that we start and say our repentance prayers, the Sabbath before Yom Kippur. That's when we do our repentance. And by the time we are doing services for Yom Kippur, what we're actually asking for forgiveness for are the mistakes we are going to make for next. That God recognizes us as fallible humans, and that we start working on asking for forgiveness and strength in order to help us get through the next. Michelle, I have to ask you, backing up a little bit, were you born into this or was this something that you slowly found yourself more in tune with? And it just built over the years. So I was born into a Jewish household. My mother is a Holocaust survivor. Her short version story is she left the Occupied Belgemaid age six with her sister and parents walked to Occupied Marseille, got smuggled out of Occupied Marseille to Occupied Marocco, from Occupied Marocco, they wound up in Cuba, and they spent six months in a concentration

10:34camp in Cuba. Most people don't know, there were concentration camps in Cuba. And then she finally got released, they all got released to the Jewish community in Havana, and from there they got a visa to Mexico, and she grew up in Mexico City until she was 16 when she finally got a visa that came up to New York and lived with relatives. We've got married at 18, had her first kid at 19. When is her book coming out? Because that's quite interesting. Unfortunately, my mom passed away in 2007. Her parents did some recordings that my uncle, I think, uploaded to the Stilberg Library of Holocaust Stories. Steven Stilberg has been doing a lot to document Holocaust survivor stories, and so we got some recordings of them talking about their experiences. I have some from my great aunt, but my dad was a third generation New Yorker. He came from that area of Lithuania that

11:36kept changing hands, so we have no documents or history, but he came over, he was third generation, and was old enough to actually serve in World War II, and he was in the Coast Guard in the South Pacific. Oh wow. I didn't know that Coast Guard went to the South Pacific in World War II, but I suppose it makes sense. Do you remember seeing the movie Mr. Roberts? So Mr. Roberts is an old movie, you'll tell Priscilla about it later, where he is a Navy cargo ship whose job it was to go around and give food to the soldiers. And the movie describes this very boring experience, and all the shenanigans they would get into because they were so bored. And my dad would say that the only thing more boring than being that ship was the Coast Guard cutter that was guarding the carrier. That's what the Coast Guard did, and he enlisted at 17, pardon me, he chose where to go at 17, so he didn't get enlisted at 18, and wound up down in fodder, and so he didn't.

12:39And tell me, I don't understand why I know this, but Henry Fonda was in that movie. Correct. Do you know who Henry Fonda was, Priscilla, because younger people won't? Honestly, the name and the movie themselves sound familiar, but couldn't put a face to it. Are you familiar with Jane Fonda? Yes, I've heard that one. That is his daughter and Peter Fonda. She's from a long line of performers. Yes, but is it so in any event, just another thing of useless information that I have, by the way, we're talking about. So you asked me about whether I'd been born into this. So my parents were not very orthodox, but wanted to make sure I got a good Jewish education. So I went to orthodox school in New York City for through elementary and middle school, and I chose to go through to an orthodox high school as well. You got down with

13:42your choice. I want more Apple mom. Well, you're giving a piece of Apple. We need to take a quick break, and then we'll return with Michelle. And her last name, Michelle, is Wexel Black, it is W-E-X-E-L-B-L-A-T. Go check her out on social media. There's lots to see. We'll be right back. Here's another point to ponder from Positive Talk Radio. What is the easiest thing to justify? It is a small transgression. The one no one will ever see. No one will ever know. The tiny exaggeration on the expense report. The extra minute you took on your lunch break, the packaging you tossed in the wrong recycle bin because it was closer. In those moments, the question isn't, will I get caught? The question is, will I know? It isn't about avoiding punishment. It's a silent agreement you make

14:46with yourself when you choose to do the right thing. To return the wallet. To fix the mistake. To respect the empty space, you aren't impressing the world. You're earning your own respect. That small choice made entirely in private is how you build a life you never have to look away from. The only audience that matters is you. And welcome back to Positive Talk with Kevin McDonald. Michelle is here. She's here in and apparently. And Michelle was wexel and black is with us. Wexel, not wexel. Wexel. Well, I keep adding syllables to them. It's fun. We keep a list of how many different ways people have misspelled and miswritten the name through the family. Wexel blood is my married name and it is a unique last name. If you come across it,

15:47we are all related no matter how it's spelled. So do tell. You started out in an orthodox Jewish family. And in a conservative Jewish family going to orthodox school. And I had a breaking of the ways with the orthodox community when my peers decided that the me behaving outwardly and showing that I was doing the right things was more important than how do we treat each other as humans. And so I left that particular very showy community that you have to be behaving and looking like you were doing the right thing as opposed to being the right sort of person and being team of good person. And I went through life and I did a number of things. I was a street mom in Colorado, helping with runaways for a little while. Came back to the east coast because Denver is a desert and I'm an ocean creature and I couldn't live there very long. And in coming back and going and

16:52looking at graduate school, I went through a number of particular things, but I've always known that I was going to be some sort of therapist. I did it as an undergrad. They had at Queens College. They had a peer advising program, students counseling other students. And so I got it. I got to spend a year and a half doing active counseling and like, yes, that said this is what I wanted to do. But it took me a while to get to grad school. And I decided on social work because I could do everything I wanted to do, including teach with a two-year degree, which I was doing part-time because I had two small kids. And that was three years as opposed to the side that I was looking at, which is a doctorate in clinical psychology as opposed to PhD, which is more research-based. And that would have been seven years part-time. Another two years supervised before I could get my independent licensure. So this was three years, plus two years, got my independent licensure, and then two within two years after that I was in private practice. Well, and as a social worker,

17:57you're where the rubber meets the road as it were. I almost wore my Star Wars theme, NESW. I wanted to talk about more than just social work, but that's where I got my grounding in things. And then you became a shaman. That is it. You go ahead. When I've been born into, I've been doing this my whole life. I've been talking to plants, talking to animals, speaking of the dead, seeing things that other people don't see. Yes, yes, knowing things that I have no idea how I know them. And this is the thing about shaman. And that in some Asian and East Asian languages, the word shaman means one who knows. And so it is tuning into that intuition of hearing what is being communicated through what we call non-ordinary reality. We have our ordinary reality that we live in here, where the spirits and ghosts,

18:57whatever it is that you believe in, that you talk to, that you that you hear existed as a non-ordinary reality. If you've never owned a pit bull, this is a pit bull. Pit bulls must have their scratches. It is. And if you do not do it, you are the worst, you're the worst dogparent ever. And so it is the chest-scripts. They are, they are very, very important. You know, just as an aside, I used to believe because this is what I'd always been told. I'd never been around pit bulls. And then you hear stories of people being attacked by pit bulls and stuff. They are, without a doubt, the most loving, caring type of dog that I've ever been around. They really are something. My last point, I'm a class lab pointer mix with more scary and more dangerous to other people. And everybody thinks labs are fun. Now, she was way too enthusiastic and, you know, she had more aggression than this one does. This one when they, when

19:59something is aggressive, you know, steps back and sits. Yeah. That's the way you do it. Michelle, I have to share with you. And if you ask me, I think little dogs like this, the basic Chihuahua is a lot more aggressive. But I love what you said about labs because I say that and people think that I'm having, of course, it's my own opinion, but I do think it's true. My mom found out she was pregnant with me because she was attacked by a lab who was malnurtured and they took her blood and fixed up and said, Oh, by the way, you're going to have a baby. So I guess it was so great that I have about just people without consent. That's the next place that I wanted to go to. It's people are okay with that. Yeah. And I love how you say that the shamanism is connecting to everything that's alive. Everything that's alive. I do that just every day. And it's just like the dog, if we're not trained correctly, like any animal, we act out. You know, if animals go through trauma, they have the same response as a human does, but they can't communicate that. And even in times,

21:04I'm realizing that humans themselves can't communicate it because they don't understand it. So when you start working with somebody, is there like a, how does that first process usually go with them? Do you just get to know them and how they are and what they've been through? No. In 2011, I started my certificate in EMDR. I moved my sensitization in her process, type of trauma therapy. And in it, it's very, very strongly consent-based. You work with people and their systems when people are ready to do their trauma work. You don't push it. You don't even the way you do your intake. You don't have people open up all of the boxes of their trauma stories on intake. And then they leave, and then they're tripping over trauma boxes, and they feel horrible after their first session, and then they don't come back. Now, there is a protocol for how you ask people questions, how you get them to talk about their past, so that they don't leave the session retirement. So starting from that, it really changed my mental model about treatments. And I start my

22:04connection with people with a free 20-minute meet and greet after a couple of email exchanges, or a phone call. And the idea is that I want people to interview me. I want to utilize that power dynamic, because normally we go to an expert, and the expert is supposed to know and fix it. This is not how this goes. I want to equalize this power dynamic, such that people feel empowered in their own healing. Yeah. They'll feel empowered to look at me and say, no, you've gotten it wrong. You're on the wrong line. And I love that about your work as you described it, because you openly admit, even though your puppy dog thinks that you're practically perfect in every way, you admit that you're not perfect in every way. And that... You tell these people that I get things wrong, and you need to tell me. And it's okay. It's okay. I also tell people that they don't have to disclose anything to me. They're not ready to disclose. That trust is built over time. What is it like for people,

23:07when you see them realize that they are learning that they do have full access and control of their healing journey, and they don't need to have somebody else do it for them in the sense of, like you said. Some people... I see a difference with ethnicities and different cultures that come. And I would recommend anybody who's in the field go and do a whole bunch of cultural competency things and learn about other cultures and talk to clinicians of that treat their own communities. I've worked with clinicians from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Cambodia, Brazil, BIPOC communities, all sorts to pick up from them. What they do for best practices for working within their own communities, so that I can do the right thing. I also have taught for the National Association of Social Workers on working with the LGBTQIA plus community

24:10on how to look at life, gender, sexuality, communication, all of it on a spectrum, and that we have the conversations, the same conversations I would have with LGBTQIA plus people within those communities as you do with anybody, because they're still a person. Still a person, don't exhumify. Michelle, during the course of this show, I would like to touch on some of those issues, because I think there's a real misunderstanding, certainly in the United States among some people, about what exactly we're talking about and the entire subject of DEI and taking care of each other and accepting people for who they are and all of that, because that's a big deal, and we need to get over a lot of that, don't you think? I think that's where we go back to what I was talking about earlier around repair,

25:11and that when we are feeling from a scarcity mindset, we are worried about other people taking resources away from us, and that's been the big buzzwords around everything around DEIs, that these people are getting special rights or special things, when really what we're trying to do is to level the playing field, but there's a phrase that says that when you are used to privilege, equity feels like disempowerment, so when you're used to being up here and we're trying to level this field, then this strip feels like they've been disempowered, and that's a fallacy. Yeah, it is, but there's a lot of fear around it, because they are scared of the other, because the others are going to either take their job, take their girlfriend, take their money, and stuff, because it doesn't make any sense other than there are people that will play on that,

26:11for in the very beginning of the show, we were talking about money and power, and that is one of the things that is being used to create the difference between people so that a certain segment can maintain and grow their power. Does that make any sense? It does. That goes back to that scarcity mindset, because when you feel that there is a scarcity, and this is where we come from carrying intergenerational trauma. In shamanism, we talk about how doing that core healing work heals seven generations in either direction. We heal seven generations back of intergenerational trauma that we are still carrying, and heal for our ancestors, and we heal seven generations forward, because if we make the change to do the healing within ourselves, we make things better for future generations. Michelle, you couldn't be more accurate, and Michelle is one of those who is making that seven generation switch, because of what has gone on in her past.

27:16Can we talk about that a little bit when we come back about healing the past, which then heals the future, which is a novel concept in itself, and tell you think about it, and then it's like, well, no kidding, that's how it's supposed to work. So we need to take a break, and we'll be right back right after this. We're talking with Michelle. Michelle Wexel-Blatt, she does have a website that is up if you have questions and want to find out a little more. You can go to therapyden.com and see some of the cool therapy that she's doing with many, many people. So thank you for being here, Michelle, and we'll be back to talk more on Kevin's idea. We'll be right at the back. Stay with us, everybody. You're listening to Brushwood Media Network, the best and syndicated talk, news and entertainment shows. Are you looking for your daily dose of inspiration? They connect it to all your favorite shows, music, and news with a Brushwood Media Network app. From positive talk radio to greatest

28:20vibes unplugged and so many more uplifting voices around the world, everything you need is right in one place. It's easy to use too. Always available and designed to keep you inspired 24 hours a day. Go to BrushwoodMediaNetwork.com and download the app and you will always have Brushwood Media available on your smartphone. Download it now and make inspiration and music and conversation part of your every day. And welcome back, everybody. My name is Kevin and Michelle's right there. By the way, greatest vibes unplugged is the music show that we also do on the Brushwood Media Network. And that's at 9 a.m. Monday through Friday, eastern time. So tune into that. We've got some great stuff going on there. But today we've got a great guest who is very, I would say, Michelle, that you are very versed in where the rubber meets the road where people

29:23actually live and they exist and all the trauma and the things that have that overcome us from being able to live our best lives. Would that be true? And and generational healing is a huge aspect of that because it goes back year generationally. And then but once that once that is changed, then it can change the future generations. Is that if Michelle, is that what are you consciously trying to do that? Or is that just kind of, you know, like, you know, what happened? I think before it was just like, oh, this is going to happen no matter what I do. But now I fully accepted it. It is a very heavy thing to take on because you take on more than just yourself. And once you start doing your internal work and you start to figure out who you are and why that is, that's when the other things come up. That's when I was just sharing with with Kevin Michelle. I'd love to tell you that one thing I've been good at that made no sense to me up until about a week ago was bowling. I'm

30:27very good at bowling. I absolutely love it. I have no idea why since I was very young. And I just learned that my great grandma actually was a professional bowler. And I now have her earrings that she won from bowling match that are little pins. And so it's things like that that continuously kind of come up in my life. But I won't say that it's not heavy. And it is harder than just living in your own little reality and scrambling around the world because you're conscious of more than just yourself. But I shared this on Facebook and I want your opinion. It said, you think you're behind, but your bloodline has waited centuries for someone like you to finally wake up. And that's kind of what it feels like is like they're all of those things happened until me because I'm supposed to break that into something else by accepting it and loving it at the same time because everybody else would have more tried to just run from it, I think. So what is your perspective on that, Michelle? One, I want to find the ancestor who gave me my skill at axe throwing. I went to one of those axe throwing places for the first time. I'm currently very good at axe throwing and I have no idea

31:31who and where that came from. But I'm really good at it. As far as that way, some people call it, you'll hear it called shadow work, ancestry work. And now imagine if not just you, but if you have other relatives and each of you had taken a piece of this work prior to you being born, you would not be holding this load to be wait to having been waited for to start this process. How do you mean that exactly? So I'm going to give you an analogy. Are you familiar with the Buddhist priest, Ticknothan? Yes, I've heard that. You've heard you've heard that name. May you rest in peace. Ticknothan wrote a book that made a huge change in my life in college. And it's called Peace is Every Step. It is, it was how I learned mindfulness. And in it, he talked about back in those days, we had telephones that way. And he said when he called somebody, the bell is his reminder to breathe. So when he called somebody, he would listen to the

32:32chimes of the ringing of the phone and he would breathe. And he would stay in the mindset that as long as it would take for the other person to answer, he was imagining them breathing and calming and being in peace so that then you were both in synchronicity when you actually picked up that phone and made that call. I see this the same way as ancestral healing. If we are each doing our bit, our interactions then each come from a more healed place. But because we have been living in a revivalist mentality, not a thriving mentality that we go from from injured to injuring others with no repair in between, no, no, no, no, making things better, no finding common ground to fix the things prevent being in the same place the next time. It takes the whole one of us, it hits the point and says, no, this is important. And I don't want to be carrying these burdens and I don't want to pass them on to the next generation to make that decision. That makes sense. That's awesome. Thank you for sharing it. I let spend my brain around a little bit. So I'll have

33:38to embody what that is. Well, let's be and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's because, well, let me ask you, Michelle, was she predestined before she even got here to be the catalyst for change within her family? Or is that something that she's picked up over time? Or is how does that process work? How does she know that and is it and as an example, her grandmother has passed, but her grandmother is very important to her in her life. Does that mean that her grandmother is now saying, you know, you are the catalyst for change, being a young woman who can do the things that can lead to generational change and she's getting help from the other side or I think that's I think that's open for all of us. Yeah. Well, Michelle, I have to tell you, she told me that I would be the person that would change the dynamic of our family while she was still here. It was almost she knew that she was almost like she knew that she was the last of what that string would bring

34:41and my mom was the the middle of it and she knew that it took that between her and my mom and me because she used to tell me that and I still think I'm like, how would she even mean that? When she started telling you that, she started telling you that. Honestly, she told me that at a quite an early age, both of my grandmas, I was one of the first for one of them. I was the first born granddaughter or grandchild in general. So I'm kind of at the top and the older when it comes to all of the family and I don't have siblings, which I think is kind of weird, but through my life, the way she phrased it was different, but it started before I really even knew what she was actually saying if that makes sense. So there are a number of things that could be going on and I don't know enough of your story or anything, but for the most part is the thing where I would ask the spirits that I work with about why you, in this case, I'm going to put the different hats on. I'm going to start with the clinical hat. The clinical hat says that you were indoctrinated

35:44into intergenerational responsibility of eldest woman of your generation that is your job now to pick up this mantle and do this, especially as I've seen, my daughter has failed to pick it up. I am now passing it on to you and I'm going to indoctrinate you and preentify you from a very young age into taking responsibility for the family trauma. So that is one. From a Jewish priestess lineage where we look at this, how we learn the tools and how we learn to be this is often from family members and it was a thing that got passed out from woman to woman. This is how you know, this is how you pay attention. This is how you listen. These are the things that I see about you to empower you. These are things that you are capable of doing and let me remind you of what your power is and in each generation, there is a from the the words of our fathers, the Pierre-Kaile

36:44you are not required to finish the work nor are you allowed to put it to them. We're not required to finish it but you still need to do to do the work and this is a thing that that you know, we we believe in and so that gets passed on from generation to generation. How do you pass on values? How do you how do you teach people morals? How do you help them build their their their foundation? Well, that makes sense because I attract a lot of other people that I meet or a lot of friends that are also doing that and have had that experience and sometimes it makes it harder because as you learn, you learn differently, you learn different levels, you know, there's different trends in generations but even those kind of things of certain certain trends that we're like, oh, my family's always done this and it's like, no, we're not going to do that anymore. I could see better. So it's all those little things and that's probably normal, right? I mean, you attract the person that you are. The other piece of that then, if we look at it through the shamanic, different people are at different points on their intergenerational inter-inter life. What is the things in

37:51Muslims they talk about in your van? They talk about becoming this enlightened being and and you will find that there are many paths in different places all to get to the same place and in Judaism, there's the same one and in shamanism there is that that each time you know around on the wheel, you are working on something and it is often influenced by your own spirit path and sometimes we hear about those things from our ancestors, both living and not living and to you, Kevin, whether she is grandma is now on the other side and watching and growing and learning to be a teacher, I do not know, I'd have to go ask her, which is the thing that I've done and to find out what her path is and what she's doing. Is that, will I let me ask you, is that really even worth doing or is following your intuition and following your, what you perceive to be your journey in your

38:51path and is that more important than getting the opinion of somebody who's passed on? Well, don't we tie into each other? Embrace the power of and now recognize that there are compassionate healed helping spirit and they give you answers from that healed perspective. There are ancestors that have not done the work to become compassionate helping spirits and they are going to ask you to do things that they may feel have been left undone and they have biases. So it depends and you have to ultimately the spirits can tell you whatever they tell you but the choice and how you interpret them and how you understand those messages and what you do with it rests with you. Now in her world, is that a heavy responsibility? Because sometimes she's felt like she has the weight of the world on her shoulders. I'm making sure that I have your consent

39:55get used to this model in this way and I want to make sure that you're with her. Kevin's my best friend, he knows more than probably anybody else in my average day-to-day life and so I'm fine with that. It really does. Sometimes it's it is enlightening though, it's exciting because only what is possible can happen and that's not something I see negative anymore. But there is other times where I recognize and I'm aware where I do not have the control and I have to step back and just focus on what I'm doing and how that will transcend into what I can't control. So I think it's really just I get frustrated if that makes sense. For the most part, I think of control as a fiction. The only real constant is change. So control in a lot of ways is a fiction. It's what we do out of out of that fear. Now I answer your question, Kevin, is this heavy? Yes, and this is why not more people do it. This is why having that internal motivation that something has happened that says this is important work to do now is is

40:59done. We we talk about in the process of shamanism, you'll see of going through a shamanic death. There's always a ritual for any indigenous culture where they go through a shamanic death and and there is a a stripping of that which no longer serves and it can really can be a very hard cleansing that happens in your life. That's a good point. And we need to take a break, but before we go, I have to say this, Michelle, because you are so gifted as a social worker and a priestess and a shaman, you can approach these issues from a myriad of ways so that you can help people find their truth, whatever that truth happens to be for them. That puts you into a really really rare category. Do you recognize that? I do. And that was one of the things I was thinking about earlier as I used to call myself a daveler that I pick up a piece here and a piece

42:02of thing there and I think I am an eclectic person. And one of the things about becoming a Jewish priestess is we talk about who is your teacher and I look at the number of teachers that I get to have and all sorts of different rabbis and priestesses and scholars and shaman's and clinicians and I don't have any one particular one because there's so much knowledge out there that I just you know I pull all of these things together so that I can be the most sure what the person needs. I was going to say complete. I think present because we're really complete. Are we? No, we're never complete. I don't know about you. Maybe you beat us. I don't want to talk. No. Michelle. Michelle's last name is Wexel Black. Yes, Michelle Wexel Black, which is very mean. So

43:06yes, you can find her on social media. LinkedIn, as she said before, she's big on LinkedIn, which is Michelle Wexel Black again and then go to her website just because which is therapy den.com and we'll take this last break but they'll try to engage as much as we can because we only have 10 minutes left. Yes, and we have to say hello to our favorite Samuel. We'll be right back. Not every song changes you, but the right ones too. At greatest vibes unplugged, we share music that hits deeper, no filters, no noise, just pure sound with soul. This is your reminder that lights still exist and sometimes it sings. And remember, you can look up in the sky and see the stars but still not see the light. And welcome back to positive talk. My name is Kevin and Michelle is right there and we've got Michelle. I've got to tell you that there's a gentleman who listens to the show with his team and it is on Saturdays, which is tomorrow his time and it's close to being

44:13his time now. He feeds 37380 children so that they do not go to bed hungry on a Saturday. And Michelle, would you like to read the message from him? Yes, hi, Samuel. Hi to your team. He says greetings, brother Kevin, sister, Michelle and guest, Michelle, greetings from Restoring Hope Center based in Cabirius Lums in Nairobi, Kenya. Thanks for hosting the guest we are watching live. And I could imagine, especially Michelle, like with your experience of working with people all over the place, I love that you've been able to be in tune with what people were born into and how they naturally learn to live rather than trying to put everybody in this one category because there is differences that matter when it comes to healing and it's different for a reason. Do you agree? Each person's journey for healing is going to take as long as it takes. This is one of the things that I have problems with the insurance industry and workmen's comp and

45:14why I think this person better already, brief treatments, pushing to do these things quicker and faster. I had one particular person that I worked with for a year who had a very strong startle reflex and we spent it just a year getting her comfortable with reducing her startle reflex and being in therapy. Why don't we really do any work other ways? I have never heard that term struggle reflex. What does that mean? It was something that just made certain sounds or smells or things that were triggering so the startle will happen. In this particular case, we're sitting at a room together, 12 feet apart and every time I would uncross and recross my legs, she would jump. Any time I made any sort of movement. Oh, interesting, interesting. You were able to help her because I could imagine her whole life that year was huge for her and in her mind maybe it only took a year. She wasn't seeing it from the medical perspective of, oh, it's taking a long time to her. That was

46:14probably pretty quickly compared to living with it for so long, right? I am not at liberty to talk more specifically about this person. That requires consent and paperwork signs. But I brought it up as a thing that trauma often has this limbic response, this how it impact your body and your system that you react to a number of things and I actually found that COVID shutdown helped a lot of my people with adverse life experiences because if home was safe, they didn't have to travel and be triggered by travel. They didn't have to come into a place where they might run into strangers and might get triggered. They didn't, all of these things they didn't have to do. The number of people that I've been working with still sitting in their beds in their comfy places supported by all their bolsters because I also work with people with chronic pain and injury which is high correlation with childhood trauma, people who wind up with long-term pain injuries, pain issues,

47:15and they're much more comfortable and much more relaxed and we made more progress. Well, I love it. You said that because a lot of people think that trauma is only kind of on the inside, like it happens in our mind and in our hearts and in our soul, but there's a physical sense to it for sure and being kept and impertive that quite a bit more often, how it will get. Yeah. It's stress being a major part of that and also the energetic field that we all are and gets clogged up and it doesn't function the way that it's supposed to and so that causes trouble as well, doesn't it? I highly recommend the book, The Body Keeps the Score. Oh yeah, I remember you saying that. The Body Keeps the Score. Right. I love triangles. I do a lot of stuff with triangles in my work. So imagine you've got this triangle where there's mind, body, and emotion and these things need to be in balance in order to function. That if any one of those corners gets flamed, it pulls, think of it like a triangle. If anyone gets flamed, you wind up changing the shape of your triangle and everything gets destabilized, whether it's

48:17physiological, mental, or emotional. I need to make it into a pyramid because we also need to add executive function and that losing executive function can also pull all of that off of your executive function. The ability to make decisions to filter information. Michelle, I have to ask you because you do so much and you work with so many people that are for lack of a better term broken or they need changes and broken is the wrong word. I apologize for that. And they're not broken, but they need a guidance on how to live their best life. But is that even true? Because it seems to me that working like you do, you get to work with all kinds of people with all kinds of issues. Do you ever find that this whole process is daunting that we all have

49:22trauma that we need to move through? Don't you know it's it's a radical compassion, radical acceptance of understanding that our world is a traumatic world and that we pick up these things because we are all carrying intergenerational trauma. As far as what you said, I want to reframe that a little bit is I don't people about all of us, yeah, I work on tool building, but what I'm trying to get to is that there is a healed solid core of person that has not been traumatized, but a person can sink to even if they're lived world experience. They have never had this from the day that they were born. It is a gift that everyone, every spirit has, is that healed place. But we need to clear the clutter away and and that's where I'm focusing on my work right now. I will admit I am not necessarily working with people who I am their first experience with therapy where I have to teach those things. I'm really looking for people who are on that

50:23cusp of making that change to be able to look into themselves and resource inside themselves. I work with a lot of healers, social workers. I do to provision mentoring of all different sorts life, you know, all sorts of coaching. I also can do shamanic healing, divination, I do psychopomp work, working with the dead. You consider yourself a teacher? I consider myself a healer. Teaching is part of healing. Well, and our friends over in Kenya and Michelle, would you like to read this because you have inspired them. Restoring Hope Center says greetings positive talk radio. Kevin Rochelle and guest Michelle from Restoring Hope Center based in Caveris, Lums, Nairobi, Kenya. Thanks for hosting Michelle. We have learned a lot and she's inspired us a lot. Thank you for highlighting our feeding program to the world. Your ambassadors, Caveria are tuned in and I have to ask you based off of all of this Michelle before we close

51:27out the show. Do you believe that if people looked within personally and started doing more of this work and taking on what they knew they were capable of and theirself? Do change throughout these generations for them that it would change the generation of the way the world is and how we live. So very much so. My newest thing in doing this priestessing path is that as we heal ourselves, we heal each other because as you said, we're energy beings and how we connect with people and how we treat each other. And as we heal ourselves and stop working from a place of fear, but a place of solidity in our core whole self and treat each other from our core whole self, then we help the people around us. Then like the old, what is a panteen commercial and they told two friends and they told two friends. We heal ourselves, we heal each other and through that we can heal the world. This is a primary fundamental piece in Judaism is Tikkun Olam,

52:27healing the world. And that is at the core of my work. And is the core because I firmly believe that we are all connected, that we are all one. And if we accepted that as our reality that are, it doesn't matter what you look like, it doesn't matter who you love, it doesn't matter if what sex you are, that we are all together and we're all we're all we're all connected. All things have spirit, all things are alive, all things, everything. Imagine what would change in how we interacted with our world if we could recognize everything is alive and everything has spirit and deserves to be treated with respect. We change everything. We're computer. I mean, the shamans did a whole thing where they went and talked to the spirits of Zoom when they went to start taking their trainings online through the foundation of Shamanic studies and they talked to the spirits of Zoom. How do we bring this online? What do you recommend in doing all things are alive and all things have spirit and all deserves to be treated with respect? And by the way,

53:30Michelle, it's time. We run out of time again. We do this all the time. It just drives me crazy. Can you, can you take us out, please? Well, thank you, Kevin. As always, for making this possible, Michelle, thank you so much for your time, for your healing that you've been sharing. We would love to have you back because there's no way we just talked about everything that we need to. Yes, please share. Anyways, the people can find you, contact you, get in touch, and then any message you'd like to leave us for with the show. I am working on setting up with a new listing for Libertory Wellness Network. I haven't finished out their application and their description. They are very thorough in the questions that they ask and it's going to take a couple of hours for me to go through it. But they are a place where you can find all sorts of support that's not just clinical. Therapy then is primarily social work clinical, but I can be found through direct

54:37email, which is mswexoblet at mswsquared.com. Therapy then linked in. I answer sometimes questions on Quora, but I'm working on this, getting this new connection, this new advertising place up and running. And the thing I want to leave people with is it doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter what you've done. It doesn't matter what you've experienced. Healing is there, and healing is possible. Thank you for being part of Positive Tonk with Kevin McDonald, where stories inspire and voices remind us of what truly matters. May today's conversation give you hope, courage, and a reason to keep moving forward and just remember. Till next time, be kind to one another because each other's all we've got.