How I met Jenny

On this, the 4th anniversary of our wedding, I would like to tell the miraculous story of how Jennifer and I met. I believe that it was fate and once you hear my story I think you will agree that there was something greater than the both of us that moved us towards our destiny to be together.

At the time we met I was really tired of Match.com and all the other conglomerations of online dating services that did little or nothing for my dating life... not to mention the damage they caused to my ego. So I decided to start my own dating service that would solve some of the problems I was having in finding a partner. Actually I had two dating services, "Sexy Salsa Singles", where an individual could learn to salsa dance in hopes of creating a relationship based on a shred interest in dancing and Sacred Speed Dating", where individuals could make a heart centered connection with a potential love interest. My friend, Carmen Infante was teaching salsa dancing at the time and I thought we could capitalize on her expertise, but Sexy Salsa Singles quickly fell out of alignment with the spiritual path that I was pursuing.

From there I created "Sacred Speed Dating", which was a new take on speed dating . I met Marielle Taylor, a spiritual teacher who was creating "Sacred Pujas" at the time. These pujas allowed single men and woman to make a soul connection with each other through a series of fun and playful tantric exercises that would open up the chakras of the participants and allow them to see beyond the physical appearance. She would have the participants place blankets in a large circle with two pillows at either end facing each other. The men would sit on the inside pillow forming an inner circle and the women would sit opposite them forming an outside circle. Marielle would then have the men rotating around the circle and switching to another woman every 7 minutes. They would then proceed to performing sacred ceremonies with each of the woman who they came into contact with. Unlike normal speed dating where you switch to a new partner every 5 minutes and ask superficial questions that would determine if the person was a good match for you, in this approach there were no words spoken throughout the whole event. The exercises were designed to determine if the individual opposite you could connect with you on a soul level, without all the mental and verbal chatter.  I approached Marielle to see if we could create an event which incorporated her Puja exercises and make it more appealing to a contemporary dating individual and we ended up calling it "Sacred Speed Dating".

It was actually very powerful and was one of my first lessons in making a deep connection with women, which ultimately allowed me to see the beauty in Jennifer and connect with her soul when I first met her. Well if you know Jennifer, you really don't have to take any Pujas or Sacred Speed Dating events to see that this woman has an amazing soul with a light that shines brighter than the star of Bethlehem!

At that same time I was taking a lot of self help classes and seminars and thought it would be a good idea to offer my list of potential clients some seminars on dating seeing that I could use some help in that area also. I met Melvin and Sherrie Allen who were teaching a workshop called the "Relationship Readiness Workshop", a three day intensive, and I mean intensive, workshop on preparing the individual to be ready when the right person showed up in their life.  When I approached Melvin with the idea of selling his workshop to my list of people, he invited me to participate in one of the workshops to see if it was something I would want to get involved in. It was a transformational experience for me and what I learned about myself during this weekend is far too personal to discuss here, but it is sufficient to say that I became open to dating someone closer to my own age.

After I participated in the seminar with Melvin and Sherie Allen, I was invited to his birthday party at the Santa Monica Fish Market and as a gift I wanted to give him a copy of the movie "Peaceful Warrior", but it wasn't available on DVD at that time. So I put together a presentation for him with a trailer of the movie and shared with him that he reminded me of Socrates, the mystic teacher in the movie, because of what he taught me in his seminar. After my presentation I happened to run into this beautiful woman who shared with me that she took the same seminar 6 months before me. We shared our notes, or should I say "Requirement List", that we created at the seminar and I found it pretty amazing that we both wanted the same thing. When she told me that she had two daughters, I stood up and said, "it was nice meeting you" and walked away from the table... then I quickly turned back and told her that I was only joking and that I had a daughter that was the same age as hers. Her name was Jennifer and I think we both instantly knew that it was a match made in heaven and to this day I am so grateful to Carmen, Marielle, Melvin, Sherie and all those who showed me how to open up and connect with my inner self so that I could share my life with woman that I love today.