201. Explore the Possibilities in Your Marriage

Marriage & Newlywed Coach Kayla Levin takes married Jewish women from overwhelmed and surviving to connected and thriving by teaching them the tools and info they need to have a strong and joyful marriage through her podcast How to Glow, her online course First Year Married, and private coaching. Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman is a marriage coach for women in business. Join them as they talk about the topic - recharge and marriage.

 

 Welcome to the Connected For Real podcast. I'm Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman, a marriage coach for women in business. And my mission is to bring God's presence into your life, into your marriage and into your business. Let's get started. 

 And we are  live. Welcome everyone to the Connected for Real podcast. I'm Rebbetzin Bat-Che  Grossman. And today with me is Kayla Levine. Is that how you say it? Kayla Levin  In Israel, we say Levine. I say Levin. My father-in-law says Levine. So you could do whatever you want. You're right. Great. So Kayla will introduce herself and then we're gonna get right into our topic today of recharge and marriage, which is really exciting.

So Kayla, introduce yourself and then we'll get right into it. Hi, I'm Kayla Levin. I live here in Israel with my husband and my five kids, and I am a newlywed coach. I've been doing this for a long time, been coaching since my second was born, so she just turned 13, 12. She's 12 now. So I've been doing this for a long time and I absolutely, my biggest passion is working with newlyweds, helping them understand the newlywed.

Phase, all of the different life changes that come along with it, and also what we're meant to get out of it. And that's what I do. That's what I focus on. Yes. And I'm so excited because I've been following you for a while. You've been following me for a while. We've had a bunch of different like collab ideas that haven't come to fruition, but this was something that was really important to me and I'm so happy you agreed.

Because my series on my podcast is basically using my four pillars, God, marriage, business, and you to attack a topic. And every month we take a different topic. So this month we're talking about recharge, and last week was recharge and God, this week is recharge and marriage, next week is recharge and business and then recharge.

And you, and each one has a different angle. And when I'm talking about recharging your marriage, I'm thinking about people who are married.  For a while and things are like up and down and there are certain things that are already stuck in place. And now we have to press the recharge button, like, sort of like charge our phones, put ourselves back into like the grounding wire.

Like how do we recharge when we're already in this dynamic, when we're already here. But before we talk about that, I think we need to first get into like that first stage of when things are still solidifying and that's what you're all about. Mm-hmm. So yeah, go for it. Yeah. And I think it's so important for everyone to, like, at any stage in our marriage, to think back, I have women who will be married way longer than me.

Even I've been married 15 years, women who've been married way longer than me. They'll come and they'll take my course. 'cause they're like, I just wanna do Shana Rishona again. And Shauna Resa, just so my knows, is the first year of marriage. There's, it's, it's mentioned in the, in the Torah and there's all sorts of ideas around it.

So I'll be using the phrase Shana Rishona a lot. That's what I'm referring to is that first year that we're married.  So what's going on in the beginning? So  we know the basics, right, the basics are we have to get you well, although let's review because even though we know them doesn't mean we're thinking about them getting used to another person.

What does that mean? That's so many things especially for people who come from, let's say, very strong family cultures. So it's understanding someone who comes from a very different family culture. It's maybe your whole family are extroverts and you married an introvert. It's maybe you are a very spiritual giving person, and this person is a more spiritual in terms of having boundaries and, and guidelines, and, and that's how they express themselves, right?

It's just, first of all,  developing a deep understanding of this other human right. And this is one of the gifts of marriage that we have nowhere else, which is there's nowhere else where we could be so seen and so known. And so.  In the beginning, it's a lot more work. Like, I'll even say, I'll be girls.

Go do your Enneagrams, your Myers-Briggs, your soul types, whatever it is you wanna do. Like this is the time your disc type, whatever test helps you understand him better. You know, activities, journals, filling things out together. Anything like that. It's this opportunity to understand someone more deeply.

So that's number one.  We also have a lot of life adjustments going on. So it could be moving to a new town, a new country, a new continent. It could be you know, adjusting to a different job, either of you adjusting to his job right. Or his learning, or whatever it is that's going on. So a new life situation, a new life set up, which often comes along also with social changes.

Okay. So we've got that going on. Right. And I'm not even going into in-laws, but that's like a whole other, right. And, and it's not necessarily just his parents. I mean, a lot of the in-law coaching I do is on sisters in-law.  Right. Boom. Like, when else in your life do you have a relationship where a person is a package deal?

You don't.  You don't, right? You choose a friend. You're not signing up for her whole situation, right? But your husband came as a package deal. And so it's learning to navigate all of those different dynamics. And really what we're shooting for  is there's kind of, and, and women who've been married longer can probably identify for themselves. 

If you were paying attention, and maybe even in retrospect, you could see this shift,  there's a point at which the marriage feels solid.  It lands, the marriage is no longer being evaluated, reevaluated, tested, checked. Are we, is it happening? Is it still happening? Is it working? Is it not working? It just is a reality in your life.

Your new reality is, I am married and your brain's not thinking about it anymore.  You're thinking about all the other stuff there is to think about, right? It becomes this given and it should become a given. And obviously we want that to be in a positive way that this is a foundation. So really, foundation is the key word in Shana Rishona in the beginning. And according to different rabbis, Shana Rishona can take, even though technically it's supposed to be one year, but this process is developmental process of the relationship. Some say five. I heard Rabbi tat say 10. He said that when I was a newlywed, so I can't even imagine what he says now.

So it's, it's this, you know, we, we wanna be thinking about it in terms of like, just like, if I wanna build a skyscraper, I'm gonna be spending a lot of time on the foundation. We actually live right now in a very brand new neighborhood. The whole thing was a mountain like four years ago.  Where we are and now, and, and I'm, I'm able to see this, right?

They're trying to build a larger building and everyone's just like, they haven't put anything in yet. They're still just foundation, foundation for, it's been like two years now. They're just working on the foundation. When is it gonna start to go up? That's when we get to see the progress. Right. But it must be that they wanna build something  pretty significant, because this one needs a really good foundation.

Same for our marriage.  Yeah. I love that. And I think the, the understanding that  these are the formative years  also helps us understand how sometimes something happens in that first interaction of like, you know, the first time we went to your parents, that's when they picked on me, that's when they judged me.

That's da da. You know? Yeah. Or, and, and these formative experiences actually affect every single time you go to your in-laws from that moment on, or every time you go shopping from that, you know, second. Mm-hmm. It's so. Heavy to be carrying all these things if they're not sitting right. Yes. And that's why it's so important to have that support, to have who to ask and how to deal with, and you know, how do I  navigate, you know, a situation that feels like it's going to stick with me now for the rest of my life.

Yeah,  life. Yeah. And also like,  how am I thinking about it? How am I understanding the context of what does a challenge mean in the context of a marriage? What's my belief system around that? Right? Because for so many people, our default is a challenge in the marriage means danger science. It means like, it wasn't supposed to be, like, there shouldn't be challenges, right?

But we're here to grow, right? And so it would be a gross oversight if Hashem put us, God put us in the world to grow. And then, but in your marriage, like, no.  There's no growth, not there. No. 'cause your marriage needs to be perfect, otherwise, you know it was the wrong person. No, no. Right. Challenge is, is that's the work, that's why we're here.

And that doesn't mean we have to stay stuck in it, right? 'cause it's like a, a video game. It gets more fun and more challenging as we pass from one level to the next. So, so we can, we can, I don't mean to say that we get mired in the challenge, that we're stuck in the challenge, we're meant to overcome our challenges, but if my whole thought is, you know, if it didn't go the way that was comfortable for me, then this is terrible,  then where's that gonna take me?

Right. I'm gonna be very, very, very stuck. I'm gonna have a really hard time  having any ownership. I'm gonna get into victim mode. But when I'm looking at it and I'm thinking like. Yeah, okay. It makes sense. Like that was a little bit of a surprise. I wasn't expecting it to come from that place.

Maybe like, I didn't think, my mother, I thought she was gonna be like really warm and cozy and she seemed like that. And now that we're married, I'm kind of getting this weird vibe from her. Let's say,  oh, okay, fine. Oh, this is the, this is the challenge, this is the growth, this is the thing that I'm  being kind of like offered here for myself.

So now we're in this totally different mindset. Right now it's about me. What can I do? What's my zone of control?  Something very new  and exciting, I think. I think so many we're just naturally drawn to growth. We're naturally drawn. I have not met a woman who doesn't want to grow. I don't think there's such a thing.

I really don't. Sometimes maybe it's directed into something that's more, you know, maybe not as deep sounding or whatever. Maybe that's 'cause she doesn't, has a certain self image. But we want growth. And growth is very exciting. It's very encouraging. We see ourselves growing, we wanna do more of it. And so it makes all of this work very fun and I think very. 

We can take it from that place. Yes. I love that you're saying it's, it, you know, the challenges are built in and they're meant to be this way. Mm-hmm. And nothing is broken. Mm-hmm. And it, you know, I am a marriage coach and a business coach in that place where they meet. And so I often will find that there are parallels between marriage and business.

'cause you know, it's all about growth and it's all about connection. Mm-hmm. So what came up for me is a sales call, right? If you're on a sales call and the person is, you know, telling you their problem, and then you say, I'm the right person for your problem. Here's how I'm going to help, here's my roadmap, blah, blah, blah.

And then you say the price. And they say, oh, but you know, I don't have time. I don't have the money. I da da. Right? And everybody's so afraid of these objections. And in reality, when you actually get really good at sales, you realize the objections are just  the person talking through the process and needing more information.

Mm-hmm. So it doesn't mean they're saying no, it doesn't mean they're saying, you know, I'm never gonna work with you. They're saying I'm having something I need to overcome and I need your help to overcome it. And now it gets really fun because you, you basically get to play this, you know, obstacle course until you get to the end.

And your being there for them to help them go through the obstacle course is your first opportunity to really help them and coach them. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Through that first decision of like, am I ready, am I not? So it feels  really different.  You know, most people would be like, oh, I hate sales. I have to like deal with all these issues.

And then you have those people who are like, I love sales because I get to answer your questions and be there for you and really like guide you through the challenges. Right, right. What a different outlook. Yes. What a different way to look at life. My first year of marriage is going to come with challenges and the more challenges I can get over and sort of  navigate mm-hmm.

To be a positive experience, the better my foundations will be. The stronger my ability to then grow and flourish. And I think the other piece that we just have to, like, I constantly going back to, my kids are probably so sick of hearing me say this, but like   if we're not starting from the understanding that God loves you  more than you can possibly imagine,  God knows everything.

God can control everything. He's all powerful.  So there's no version of this story where the challenge isn't in some way a gift. That doesn't mean it has to feel like a gift right now,  but I can just hold onto that intellectual knowledge that this is in some way for my good, this is for my benefit, whatever I'm going through right now.

It's not even just like,  you know, it's, I guess it could be true on a sales call also, or like you have a challenge in your business or you know, in, in any area of life. But  it's also just that piece. It's, it's not just challenges because, oh, that's what life is, or, oh, 'cause I'm trying to be like better but better is this kind of vague, amorphous idea.

It's like, no, no, no. God has this unbelievable, he has this portrait, right? This like Harry Potter style moving portrait. It's like way more than just a picture of like who  was in mind for you when you were created  and the whole goal is to help you get there. Right?  So now it's even better.

It's not just challenges. It's like let's say you desperately wanna get in good shape and you find the best personal trainer in the entire planet. And they say, I will work with you  24 7.  I will be right next to you. And I will tell you, oh, no, no, no, no, no. You don't.

You need to get up from the desk. You have to stop sitting. It's too much sitting. You're gonna get tight thigh muscles. Right? You're not gonna be like, oh,  it's so challenging to have a body. No. Or to have a personal trainer. No. You can be like, oh my gosh, this person is getting me to my goals. This is really exciting.

This is amazing. They care so much about me. Again, I'm not trying to say we need to be there all the time. We're human.  Yeah. And we were designed that way.  No, I use the alarm analogy where  you fall asleep and your alarm rings. What do you do? You start screaming at the phone, why are you waking me up?

Whatcha  doing? Why are you making noise? No. You're like, oh, this is to wake me up. Now I'm conscious. Right? So all these things that are happening in our lives, they feel annoying or they feel like they're making noise or they're like, you know, woo woo. And it's just for you to be like, wait, you fell asleep.

You, you lost consciousness. You're not up here with us. Yeah. You know, something is not in alignment. Just wake up  and in a situation, a lot of times, like in the heat of the moment, I'll be like, oh, okay, one second, I need to go wash my face. Like, rearrange my, yeah. Where I am at in the world and I'll come back to this argument, but like from a different place.

And it's a surprising thing to do in the heat of the moment. Be like, wait one second, I have to go brush my teeth. You know, like, what are you doing? But it's, it's that wake up call that is like, huh? What if my husband isn't just annoying? Mm-hmm. What if he is reminding me  of who I want to be?  Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.  Yep.  Okay. So do you wanna go more into the newlyweds or do you wanna go into  Yes. So I mean, I would love to go into the recharge now. I, yeah. I'm sitting there in this, you know, in this, like  what you said before we go continue forward, I just wanna like, sit in a, in an emotion or a feeling or, or a moment there that you said everything is from God and it's for your best and it is designed to get you where you wanna go. 

Right? So  it's so simple when you say it like that, you know, it's like, it's so   like relieving. I feel this like,  yes. Good reminder. Yes. You know, like  right now I'm dealing with my first grader that doesn't wanna go to school because she only wants to be with me because she's afraid of everything and anything.

And like she's going through her own like, you know, Midward crisis. Mm-hmm. And  like totally normal. And I'm sitting there like, what do you want from me? I did everything for you. I spent an hour in the park on the way to school. I walked you all the way here. Please leave me alone so I can go home and work.

Right? There's this like helpless feeling of  what else does she want from me? And then what you just said, it just sat so well in my body. It was like,  what if this is for me to like remind myself of like, oh, it's okay. This is, this one's one, this will pass two. This is for growth, right? It's for her growth.

It's for my growth. This is definitely pushing us in the right direction.  And three,  it's exact,  it's orchestrated. It's exact. Mm-hmm. It feels so good. So thank you for that. That was like a nice healing moment for me.  You wanna hear a crazy story about this by the way? That just like came to me as you're telling this.

Okay. So I have a bizarre story. We don't need to go into the whole thing right now, but. Suffice it to say I was in professional drama training, like drama school before I became who I am, and I was in the summer intensive and there was a two and a half hour. You know, a big thing is if you, that a lot of people don't know is that actors, if they are on stage, have to be in tremendously good shape.

Because a two and a half hour show is like a Broadway show is, is like a marathon. It's extremely physically taxing and you're doing it like eight times a week and you can't get sick. So two and a half hour, very, very intense physical  workout. I can't even describe, there's no words for what this kind of workout was.

I'll just say that the tagline was, it hasn't really started until someone's thrown up.  Okay.  That was like  how this summer went. We got in the most amazing shape, but I'll say with this very human instructor,  right.  There would be times when I would be like, I am ready to pass out. I am ready to just lie my body down on this gym floor and be done for the day. 

And he'd be like, no, 10 more reps.  And I remember having this thought,  oh, you, he thinks I can do 10 more.  I didn't think I could do 10 more,  but I had, again, in just a human, I had enough faith in him to know if he says 10 more,  I probably could, I think I could do 10 more. Okay.  And I would,  and so I feel like there's, and now, now change this whole scenario.

Now  sometimes it really doesn't start till we're throwing up. I mean, I, that to me feels very much like sometimes Hashem is really pushing us with, you know, a lot and we're like reacting and like rejecting and,  but  if Hashem says 10 more reps,  you can do it.  You just didn't know that was the muscle you were supposed to be building right now. 

Mm. So good.  So good. And so like, that's so cool that you do that.  Everybody go be Kayla's friend. I'm just like, that's it. Now we're friends. I'm thinking of the swimming I swam the Kinneret two years ago, like across the whole Kinneret. Wow. And like you start from one side and you get to the other and you have, it took me two hours, but it's supposed to take less.

'cause I stopped and looked at the view and enjoyed myself.  'cause on brand, very on brand well done. It wasn't a timed thing. It, they said, as long as you get to the other side, you win. So I won, like it's fine. Amazing, right? I got the, the little whatever it's called, the medal. But.  When I started, I started swimming and like, I'm not moving, I'm not getting anywhere.

This is ridiculous. What am I doing here? I like practiced all these months in pools. I never was in like open water and now I am swimming against the current and I'm not moving.  Wow. And it was the worst brain experience ever. Like my brain was going turn back and go home, not happening. And I turned back to check just 'cause like, I was like, I don't know, I need to see.

And I turn around and I see I'm actually much farther than I thought. Mm-hmm.  And then I turned forward and I realized this is an illusion. You're, you're swimming in a straight line.  It will always look like it's really far away because there is no, really far, because there's no depth perception. Like what's the difference between if you're one kilometer away or two kilometers away?

It all, it barely makes a difference in your eyes and in your brain. It all just looks like view and like, I'm going towards something over there that looks like a white balloon thing, right? Like, you don't actually see anything. And  I swam with 500 women, so it was really an experience. Wow. And I'm hoping to do it again this year.

And this year my daughter wants to join me and my mother might join. So I'm like very excited about this experience. But   what's amazing is that as soon as I looked back.  I said, oh, this is a mind game. Like anything else in the world. Like, I thought I was doing something physical. I thought I was disconnecting from all this, like high level talk and this and thought and whatever.

Like all the mindset stuff. No, no, no, no. This is where it's at. It's when you are in the trenches when you're doing the thing and you're like, oh, it's not working. I'm a failure. I'm turning around, I'm going home. Nothing's, you know, moving. And then you turn and you're like, no. Now I have to prove to myself that it's working.

So every time I would pass a person, I would be like, I just passed someone means I'm moving forward. Let's keep going. And I would move and pass another like in a little, you know,  thing. And that's, you know, the, the, that's all you had to mark, right? It's not like a pool where, right. All these markers around, there was like the lifeguards and the things.

And every time I'm passing something, I'm like, note to self, we're doing, we're doing it. This is progress. Keep going. Yeah. This is what I do with my clients all the time. Like, can you celebrate that you just did this one tiny thing? Because if not, then your brain just keeps looping around the fact that you're not moving  a hundred percent.

And this is a great way to transition into, we are married for a long time and a lot of my clients are married for even longer than me. So I'm married 19 years. I have clients who are married 40 years, right? Yep. Mm-hmm. And they're telling me  it's just like, I can't do this anymore. Mm-hmm. And I even had one client who told me that she thinks she married the wrong guy.

And now that she's marrying off her children, she is jealous of them. That they found the right guy, like jealous of her daughters. And it, first of all, it's really painful to hear because it's, it's,  it's an experience that she's having that that creates pain.  Yeah.  But second of all, this is happening because of something that happened in the formative years.

That just stuck and was never revisited. Mm. That's what I wanna talk to you about is how do we, you know, we called this episode Recharge Your Marriage, but how do we get to a place where we could pause for a minute, put our phones down, plug it in, and let it get the juices it needs to continue functioning without having to just fall apart and put everything like, okay, that's it.

All the kids are married. Now we can fall apart. Now we can get divorced. Like so many people are doing that. It is not what I recommend. Please don't do it. Mm-hmm. It's like an awesome opportunity to revisit your experience and your marriage and find what God wants from you right now in this new stage.

But  I want you to talk about that, about this feeling of marrying the wrong guy. Mm-hmm. About how to deal with such a thing so that it doesn't stick and what to do when you find yourself thinking back and saying, oh. Maybe it's not right. Maybe, maybe all these years I was just pushing hard and it was for nothing.

Mm-hmm. Or I was just, you know, really in it because of the kids and it was not the right thing.  Okay.  I wanna just say one quick thing for people who aren't even in that crisis mode, but have just been married longer before we go there, because I think that it's like  someone hearing that could be like, oh, I've been married longer, but like, things are good and I just wanna say the recharges for all of us.

 Sarah Rell, I did a training with her. She puts it so beautifully. She talks about there's these like two opposing forces in a romantic relationship. There's the need for stability and comfort and safety and security. And there's like the arrows, which she calls, which is like the.

Excitement, the newness, the like, who is that guy? Right. That kind of the dating experience that a lot of us have of like, you know, I, I wanna look good and I wanna like see and then alone, how's it going? And all of that, like early stuff.  And I see, I love going, I live in Israel and I love going to speak in like newlyweds apartments because it still feels like they're playing house and it's just the most yummy thing.

And I'm like, that's what you're supposed to be doing. Spend all afternoon, finding a frame for your wedding picture for your wall. Like, yes, yes. Okay, fine. You can also have a job. Like, I'm not saying this is all you should be doing, but this is the time for that. Like, I'm married. This is so cool. Right.

There's like this, you know, I'm from Orlando, Florida, so I think happily ever after, it didn't corrupt my mind. It almost like, I feel like seeped into my bones as like  Yeah. Marriage is just, just being married. That's my happily ever after we're fighting, but it's with my husband as happily ever after, like at the end of the day. 

It's a dream.  And,  I think getting back to this energy of,  of that newlywed energy, all of us need it. We need to just not be so old. We need to not be so responsible, like so professional and serious all the time. Like, I want you to go get some whipped cream and like put it on your husband's nose. Like whatever it is.

Like, do we need, we need the playful 'cause here's what happens. Why is she talking about that? What happens is when kids come along, they become their own,  they're all the excitement. And then we're like, I don't need any more excitement. So honey, we're gonna go to our same place for dinner again, that we go every single week and we're gonna have date night and it's gonna be the same every single 'cause.

We just want that stability. 'cause the kids are like, what is even flying with all these crazy people around my house?  And then the kids leave and what am I left with?  Stability. No excitement. There's none of that, that pull, that push. I'm fortunate in that my husband throughout our marriage has had many different experiences where he does some kind of public speaking.

I always go and I sit in the back and I watch him through everyone else's eyes.  It makes him feel so separate from me. So other I'm like, is this guy that was smart? Right? It's like I'm rediscovering him. We can do that. Also, like at the shabbas table, if your husband's saying something over in Torah and he's saying something like, we, we can use these opportunities to create that.

We need that at any phase, in any level of health in our relationship. We need to just take ourselves less seriously. We need to have more fun. And especially couples that are struggling because you can't buckle down on seriousness with more seriousness and get anywhere. We need to open it up.

I see this with coaching all the time. If my clients aren't having fun, we don't move.  That's it. You have to have fun.  Nothing will make you grow faster. If you're having fun, you're enjoying it. It's light. It's moving. It's fluid. It's just a completely different experience. When we're coming at our goals and I wanna fix this marriage and I need to, you know, we get it together and make my business work, it's ugh, it's so rigid.

There's so, there's so there's no possibility here. So I have to say that first. Yeah. We all need it. Whatever is your version. I love everything you said. Stop being old  because old is a, is a mentality. Mm-hmm. Old is a state of being. Mm-hmm. And it's the funniest thing when my husband met me and my parents and we got serious and then we got engaged and my parents and his parents went together to look at the hall. 

And his parents are very like, serious and like, you know, taking this very, seriously, we're choosing a hall, it's a big deal. And my mother is having the time of her life being like, oh my gosh, this is so exciting and they're gonna have a cake and could we make sure that the cake is this and that?

And da. And she's walking around and she's like, you know, checking everything and touching on it. She's like, this is so fun. And it was like, my husband described this experience as being with the oldest people and the youngest people in the same room, right? 'cause like, my mother is being the, the young person.

And you know, there wasn't that many years apart. Maybe they're a little bit older, whatever. But like, it really is a mindset, it's a mentality. It's the way you approach life. It's, we are doing the exact same thing and we're going to be paying the exact same amount and like everything is the same. But the way we approach is so different.

And so I love that you said that like reminder, just because you are a certain age and number does not mean that you have to act your age. Yes. And I think that's so often we're the people that struggle with this the most are the like very good people. Like they're so good. They're so conscientious, they're so responsible.

Right? And like, those are such wonderful qualities. And I'm not saying that you have to get rid of them, but I find that with those clients, they have to think back to a much younger age because their whole self, they'll say to me like, Kayla, I'm not like you. I don't say things like that to my husband.

I don't, we don't. That's like, if I did that, he would like faint. I'm like, great. Let's do it. Be fun.  Yeah, that'll be fun. Right? But like,  so, so for them, they have to think back like. Well, what was fun when you were seven? What was fun when you were five? Like how far back do we, however far back we need to go?

Because no one's personality is, I don't have fun. Right? That's not a personality type, right? It might not come out in the same way that it does for me. You might have more of a verbal banter and another person has more of a physical humor, whatever it is. Like,  actually that's a great example. Like I see this with my mother-in-law's Israeli, and I dunno if it's a languish thing or if it's just her natural state.

She loves physical humor. My parents met in England. They're very like Anglo file types, like they will make, they're the type of people that you'll, they'll make a joke and you don't quite realize and 10 minutes later you're like crying. You're laughing so hard because it was like so sophisticated. You had to unpack it for 10 minutes and then you realize like what they said, right? 

Completely different types of humor. But what's amazing is that in both cases it was just embraced. Like if my father-in-law sees something physically funny, he's like, come here, come here, come here. He wants to give that to her. He wants to give her that humor. So whatever your version is, whatever works for you. 

We just gotta get that fun going. Okay. So we need to talk about your  Yeah, no, this is really powerful. I know of a story of a woman. I know her very well. She loved singing. Mm-hmm. And she was really careful not to sing in front of men because it wasn't modest. And she was looking forward to the day where it just, like, there's finally one guy who I don't have to hide my singing voice from.

 And then she got married and the first time she sang, her husband said, oh, what are you, like a Disney princess or something?  Like, you're singing like, you know, one of those Disney princesses. Like he meant it as, oh that's really good singing. 'cause it's Disney princess level. But she took it as, oh my god, you're still in.

Yeah, I can't, I can't sing again. And she just completely shut down her singing.  To the point where she doesn't even sing anymore. And fast forward 20 years later, her kids are into singing and whatever, and like the only songs she's singing is like little kid songs. Because that's just what is allowed in her mind.

Like her story is there is a cap to how professional your singing could be or how good your singing can get. Mm-hmm. So you can't sound like a Disney princess, right. You have to be able to sing on a, a first grade teacher level.  You know, it's one of the things I teach my newlyweds, it's like lesson number one in communication is men communicate on the lines and women communicate between the lines, which means anything your husband ever said that you interpreted, which you didn't even know you interpreted.

So here's what you have to do. You literally have to, if your husband said something that was hurtful or offensive, you need to write out the direct quote and then look at it.  Sometimes you even need to have someone else tell you what does this mean? Literally. Like, I've actually had women coaching with me and we wrote it out.

I put it up on the screen so they could see it,  and I'm like, do you see what he said? Do you see what it means? And she's like, right, it's hurtful. I was like, no, no, no. Look at the words. She's like,  oh, oh. It just means like that. Like what he said, yes, it means what he said, it means what he said.

It's the most refreshing, amazing thing on the planet to be married to someone who just says what he means. I think that's my story. And then this guy was, and then, you know, the best part is the guy goes, I have no idea what I did. Like I don't, I don't know why she's hurt. I, I don't understand. Right. I, all I said was, and he'll repeat himself and, and you're like, really?

You don't get it? That's like even more hurtful. You don't get it. So we could play this game back and forth for a long time until, you know, it's like, oh,  this is, this is great.  So yeah, let's you kind go to the Apple app store and you're trying to put the app onto your.  Pixel Google phone.  You would never try to do that.

You would never try to run an Apple app on a Samsung or a Google phone. 'cause you just know it's the, it's the wrong operating system.  So when we get offended by like, him not getting it, we're basically saying like, I'm mad that I can't play  this app on the wrong phone.  Right. Different operating systems, like, have fun with that, but like, I don't know how much time you're gonna spend on that.

Just go get the right app.  Like, you know.  Yeah. Yeah. This is great. That's great. If you're in a different operating system, just face the facts and then learn to use the, you know, the technology to your advantage. It's so delightful to be married to someone who just says what he means.  Right. It's such a relief.

And something else that I, and something else that I love is that if you ask questions, they don't take it personally. They would just end, you know, because like if, if, if a guy comes in and he says something and it's hurtful and then he asks you something, it's like even worse.  Mm-hmm. Right? But like, if you ask questions about what he said, like, what did you mean by this?

He will actually tell you what he meant and he won't be like, why are you asking? That's so rude. He won't, as long as he doesn't think he's being trapped. Right. If there's been enough of a history of like, you know, when she asks questions, I get in trouble, then his, you know, he does have flags.  Yeah, for sure.

And that's what we're talking about. There is the frame, the, you know, the foundation of when you learn these things, right? Mm-hmm. I, I started to learn that I can't ask questions. I started to learn that I can't sing. I started to learn that I have to play a certain game,  but then now we're like, wait, I can re revisit that.

I can revisit the rules. I can change them up.  Yeah.  Yeah. That's why I get so excited. I think I, I.  I can't say I get more excited when someone goes through my course that's been married longer, but it's a different excitement. Right? It's a different excitement. It's a, it's more of like when my, when someone comes in like two weeks after getting married, I'm  like, oh,  you just got, you just saved yourself so much, right?

Like  just all this stuff. You didn't have to learn the hard way. You don't have to build up all these negative stories. Like you could just come at this whole thing clean.  'cause, because the thing that's important is that it's not like we're coming at things with a clean slate. We have so much social and just other people's stories and other people's interpretation.

Like we, we, we come in with a lot of baggage. We think that we come in clean, we don't, and so we really do need to make sure we've got the right, the right understanding, the right mindset about marriage going in. But when someone comes in who's been married like longer than me,  then I kind of have this feeling of like, whoa.

Like I really admire that. It's a very cool, that's a very cool thing to say. I've been married for 20 years and I'm doing Shauna all over again. A great time, by the way, would be when your kids leave.  I'm open to hearing a whole new story about my husband. I'm hoping I'm open to, I just told somebody who's been married, she told me 40 years,  and I told her something.

She said it changed her marriage.  I do that too. This is my favorite thing.  Like there's women who are fifties and sixties and even older working with me and it gives me the biggest pleasure to hear like, oh, you know what we did for the first time We went together and we did this and that and the other, and like bought this and went here and, and talked about this.

And it was the first time he looked me in the eye and said this. And I was like, this is so fun. Isn't that awesome? You know? And could you imagine missing that if you just continued on the same trajectory you were on? Like, and I wanna, I wanna under like emphasize it's, it's greatness on the part of that woman. 

Meaning we have tools and we have ideas and we help and we're coaches. And of course it's, there's no reason to do something on your own. If you could get someone to support you, if you're able to have someone to support you on these things, it's much easier. It's so hard, just like with that client who couldn't understand what her husband was actually saying, when someone can just reflect back to you or, oh, did you notice that you made up a story about singing?

Like do you, it can be so helpful to have someone there. And then also just the confidence and the permission. Yeah. That this external person, just like your coach physically was like, you can do 10 reps. If a person outside of you says, you can do this hard thing and I'm gonna hold your hand, I'm gonna be right here with you.

But like you really can. It is so much more  easy.  It's suddenly less impossible. Yes. Because they believe in it. They believe in you, and they're holding your hand through it. So powerful. And I love that you're saying this is a real. A  celebration for any woman who is at any stage, who signs up for anything because it takes so much to be so honest and so ready to transform whatever situation you're in.

  Hey, before we continue the episode, I want to ask you something. Are you ready to get answers from God directly, feel more in love with your husband and more supported than ever? Run the business of your dreams without having to sacrifice any other part of your life? That is exactly what my one-on-one private coaching is for, and I want to invite you, just you and me.

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 And I wanna say that I, the biggest objection I often will get was like, I've been doing all this work all these years, why should I have to do more? I'm tired. Right? And what I wanna say to that is, if the work you've been doing has been heavy,  then something's off. Right?  Work should make your experience of this all lighter.

That doesn't mean that things are going to change. He's magically going to do all the things that you think he needs to be doing.  But heaviness comes from resistance. It's like, I think you said this to me in our last conversation. You're like, oh, I've accepted that. He da da da. And you're like, no, no, no. 

Right, right. If you're your teeth and you say acceptance, it's not called acceptance. Yeah. No. What, you know, this is one of the things, like you say you get this a lot. I get, oh, I've accepted that. This is how he is. And then you get this like passive aggressive look. Mm-hmm.  You know? Right. And it's like, no, you have, it's accepted.

 You're just still annoyed. But you've accepted that fighting it. Is it really the way? But that's not acceptance. Real acceptance is like, it's not heavy. This is, yeah. This is not mine anymore. Like, I'm not carrying this put down the bag, you know, the backpack that looks like, you know, bigger than you, like those sherut leumi girls are walking around wearing,  right.

Like with all the laundry from the entire two weeks that they weren't home.  Put down the bag. It's not yours. Don't carry it.  Yeah.  I wanna say something about the recharge that while you're talking, I'm like, oh, it just hit me.  And I am thinking about  the bookends  of, you know, a woman's life.

Mm-hmm. So you have like, you're a little girl and then you have this like transition period, and now you're a woman and then you have a second transition period, and now you're wise. Right? There's like the wisdom phase and in that  double transition  it teaches us something that you don't just create.

Foundations once and that's it. Mm-hmm. There is a new level of going back to the foundation, like you're going through like extremely similar situation. Maybe a little backwards, but still all of the things are the same. They act the same. The hormones are, you know, wild. You're like, you know, not really yourself.

You're trying to figure yourself out. You're not really going backwards. You have to relearn who you are. Like all the things are so similar, they're so parallel. Mm-hmm. And when you're saying there is Shana Rishona and then there is this. Phase in your life where things are starting to change around in your own home.

Kids are starting to get married, they're moving out, you're finding yourself in a new stage, and this is your like, you know, perimenopause to menopause, you know, type of like situation where you're like, Hey, look, we get a new opportunity to get to know ourselves, to get to know our bodies, to receive ourselves and accept ourselves, and just be in ourselves in a new way where we don't have to.

You know, go again. Like you don't have to do the same thing twice. Just maybe you had a bad experience when you were a teenager and nobody talked to you and you, and you're annoyed. And you know, ever since then you've been carrying this like, you know, womanhood really heavily. Does that mean you have to go through this stage just the same?

No, you can revisit it. You could get support, you can have a different attitude. Mm-hmm. So I feel like it's the same as so parallel to our marriage where you're saying there's this like before marriage and then there was this first year that really formed the rest of our experience. And then there's all of this like trying to survive experience, right?

Like the kids and life and work and money. And there's always things that are going to sort of like shake you up and you feel like you're going up and down and, and you know, roller coastering and that is normal because this is what this stage of life is like. And I, I keep saying like, just keep going, keep moving forward.

'cause there is always. What to look forward to. And then there's this like, oh, there's a transition again. When you catch yourself in that transition, that's what I'm talking about with recharge.  And at, at any point you could recharge, but like the way you said it was like, yes, there is this wake up call of like, oh, it feels like something is going on.

Let's look into this. Let's revisit all of the same frameworks and foundations that we had the opportunity to revisit when we were first married to or visit for the first time. We now get to revisit. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And you've been, in the meantime, if done right,  you've been building all these skills in the background that it's like, you know I think my husband was saying recently how  if a woman has been a stay-at-home mom and now she's coming into the workforce for the first time for many, many years, and he's like, I want that one on my team. 

I know what a stay-at-home mom can do, right? She's, she's a project manager. She's organized, she's like, if she's been managing a house, then I'm looking seriously at that resume, right?  So same idea  if you've raised boys, especially,  let's get this example of like when my oldest son was like two, two and a half, three maybe. 

He was in the kitchen with me and my hands were full and a door was open. And I was like, sweetie, could you close that door for me? And he went and he closed it. And I was just starting to learn all this stuff about like masculine, feminine, provider receiver energy. And I just really gave him, I let him, I just allowed myself to feel so provided for.

So taken care of. I was like, thank you so much that you took care of that. I couldn't do that. I was doing this.  I kid you not, the kid had such a testosterone search and being able to be legitimately helpful to his mother. He turns around and he punched the wall 

and I was like, it's all true. Everything I'm learning is true. This is a real thing. And I'm always saying to my women, your husband is the same. He's just a little too old to punch a wall usually.  But the same thing's happening. If you've been raising boys, you have learned more about what a man is. That puts you in a very different place to be able to appreciate your husband.

Even if you haven't been raising boys, you've learned about nurturing and prioritizing, right? There's so many skills you've built. So it's not like saying like, oh, I just have to start from scratch 'cause the kids aren't here. And that's what we've been focused on. If we think about.

Everything you've gained over these years that can now be invested. So, that's huge. That's huge. But I also think beforehand, if we talked to the women who do still have kids at home,  one of the things that I think that we've done that I'm so grateful for is we heard so many times,  there's no parenting class that will help you  if your marriage is not solid. 

We heard it over and over and over and we just went, okay, we are going to operate 100% according to that, which I think a lot of people hear it and they get it, but then they sign up for the parenting class. Mm-hmm. So we really did it, and if we needed something, we needed to get away, we needed to talk, we needed to just sit and have coffee together and ignore the kids and let them go to school late. 

The marriage came first.  Now, obviously we still have to be responsible for our kids and there's times when, whatever, if we could reschedule it, we would or whatever, but it was a very, it has always been a very, very clear priority for us. The marriage has to be solid, not just for us. For them,  they need that.

They need to see,  it's their entire sense of stability and safety. So I wanna say that too, because for the women who are listening who do still have kids at home, don't wait until they're leaving to redo your Shand. Una. Like this is the, like, if they're here, they benefit. Every bit of work that you do  benefits them.

It trickles down to them, and so do it while they're still home, if you can.  And it doesn't have to be, again, it's not heavier. It's easier. You talk about putting down the bag, I always tell 'em it's like quitting a job. Like do you really want another job? You want the job of managing how he manages himself socially around his friends.

So you're gonna comment and tell him how he should be doing it all the time. Quit. How many jobs do you have? Woman Quit that one. You're busy with all your other stuff. Oh, you also want the job of making sure he is like praying enough and he is learning. Really quit. You are too busy. He is a grown man. He will take care of it.

You have too many jobs. It should be a relief, right? It should not be more burden.  Yes. I love what you said about, I've been working so hard, it's just not fair that I have to do the work because it comes down, you know, it comes back to what you said about your parenting is dependent on your marriage. And your marriage is dependent on you because you are the core of your marriage.

Your husband is here really like, sort of circling you and trying to like please your needs and, and provide for you and doing all the things like, but you are the one just standing there in the middle holding it. So when you invest in yourself, when you take care of yourself, when you are showing up.  The best way that you can and taking care of making sure you can contain all this. 

It will trickle to your marriage, it will trickle to your parenting and everything else. Mm-hmm. 

So good.  And sometimes it's also just knowing that like,  oh, I'm feeling like this is all very heavy. That's because I've put myself at the bottom of that totem pole. Right?  So you're carrying it all mean. My relationship with God is out of whack. My relationship with myself is out of whack. I'm not taking care of myself.

I don't see how that's gonna happen in the next 24 hours,  but at least I can know that's why this is happening.  Hmm. That one of the things I, I love that. Yeah. One of the things I teach the newlyweds, is that, you know, if you look historically at the context of marriage, for most of human history, marriage was functional.

And we had village structure, which means women had the wise older woman who they went to for advice. They had the younger woman that they felt like they were a giver. They had a lot of peers that they could enjoy and have social time and laugh. This one makes her laugh. This one makes her cry. The whole thing, the whole social structure was so nourishing and our marriages were protection  and provision and children, like they were functional.

And it wasn't, that's not sad. People were good. We, we got our needs met, right? But the marriage wasn't required to cover all of it. Now we've moved. We wanna be climbing Everest,  but we're still carrying the same toolkit as if we were climbing the little hills that we had to climb back in the village, right?

I can't get up Everest with the same amount. So it's fine if you, maybe you can't get yourself the Sherpa and the whatever and all the things that you need to get to the top of Everest right now. Maybe there's too much, but just realize.  If I'm trying to climb Everest and I'm not supplied right now, I'm not able to come.

Lemme just make this into actual marriage. Bring down the actual, what I'm saying.  If I'm trying to get to this unbelievable level of marriage where it provides for so many needs and I don't have the bandwidth to invest in it that much, it's realistic to assume I won't get there right now. That doesn't mean my marriage is broken.

That doesn't mean I married the wrong person. That doesn't mean anything. It just means  this is what I have to put in. And as soon as possible, I'm gonna put in more. 'cause I know if that's still my goal, I can change my goal. Also, I could say I want my marriage to be, I mean, I don't, why would you? Gosh, don't change your goal.

Go to Everest.  Take it back. Yeah. You know what, if I say, if I say, you know, I'm not gonna go to Everest, I'll go to a, a lower one. It's because I don't believe that I can, or it's not attainable. And me and you both know that anybody who signed up is capable.  Anybody who is living in this world has the cata.

Well, I think I say it this way. There's two books that I refer to with marriage.  There's Rav Aharon Feldman, I have it right here 'cause I'm about to do a whole workshop on it. The river, the Kettle, and the Bird, where he talks about the three stages of marriage and the three stages of peace.

And the last one is the stage of the bird where you are a one unit, you become, you create this level of unity that is nowhere else in the planet.  The other book is Rav Miller Avigdor Miller, and it's called Perfection in Marriage. And it's about your work and how your work comes out through who you're married to. 

There are women who have been handed a very complicated situation.   R Miller's book is for them.  Their work is not necessarily to reach the level of the bird if you're married to, for, to a person who is deeply, deeply. Dysfunctional or troubled. Right. So  I, I think, I think I've, I've read in several different sources also different rabbanim saying, look, it's not what we all get.

It's what we should all get. It's what we would all like to get. Right. And I think most people that I work with is very rare. There's actually been one situation where I, I coached a woman and I was like, not sure.  I was not sure. And she was just all in. She's like, I just know I'm never leaving this marriage. 

That was her decision  coming into coaching, and she's like, I'm just gonna do, I'm just gonna try it all. Whatever. She's a beautiful marriage. Yeah, yeah. This is, this is what I'm talking about. When I get women who are like, this is my last draw. I was told that you were going to be different than all the other people, and I'm giving it my last chance and I am all in.

Mm-hmm.  There's magic that happens when that happens. Yes. Magic. Beyond what we can comprehend because it's all God. Because you know, it's that story where you're like climbing the steps and then suddenly there's an elevator, you know? And it's like, I needed you to put in your effort and I wanted to see that you were all in, but now I'm gonna make it easier.

You know? Now I'm going to just take you up with me so that it's so powerful that you said like, no, don't lower your, your goal. Yeah. Because really just all you need is the right tools. All you need is the right clever to be with like the right group of, I think it's very challenging. Meaning like, this is also where I get, like, we talked about this also before, like this is where the whole like manifestation thing gets messy, right?

 I think only God can tell you what you're gonna get. You know, if we still had prophecy, a prophet could tell you what you're gonna get.  I think that most people who are gonna be on this call listening to this recording. Have much more to work with than they realize. Like, I think that, that we could say across the board, people generally have way more to work with than they realize.

What do you mean by that? Work with we tend to live, you know how they say like, we only use like a tiny fraction of our brains. Hmm. I feel like it's like that with our marriages, right? Like We keep, you know, oh, and also I can't sing in this marriage and also I can't do this. And also he doesn't like this.

And like, we keep making it smaller and smaller, like this area of which my marriage, like I can exist in my marriage and we can relate in my marriage. And it's, it's so much bigger. There's so much more potential. And yes. Having someone outside of you to sort of like help you push those, those things away or question those beliefs or challenge those ideas a hundred percent.

 I just, I feel like it's, it's, it's responsible and important to say, like  it's, it can never be a promise. It can never be a promise. There are people who are deeply, deeply unwell. Unfortunately, we live in the kind of society where like your husband, you know, forgets to bring you coffee in the morning and everyone's gonna tell him he's a narcissist and you should divorce the guy, but that's not what I'm talking about.

Right? That's then those women, they know who they are, right? They know who they are if they're married to a man like that. And it's, you know, as I say, is way beyond my pay grade. You know, if a woman's coming to me and she's saying, I don't know if this qualifies for divorce, as far as I know, that's about the same as going to your local pediatrician and saying, should I amputate my leg?

Like, no, no, no, no, no. You need the big guns. You need the top, top, top, top people to have that conversation. I love that. Yeah. Let's, let's go back to where we started, which is, you know,  is that even a thing? I married the wrong guy?  Well, so here's what I think is so interest, like, I wanna say fun because mindset is like my playground, but I'm not gonna say fun 'cause that will sound invalidating to the woman.

What I think is fascinating about it is that you'll never know.  Which means essentially you're making it up,  right?  So, and whatever you decide to believe is probably going to be the truth.  So we would just wanna like look at, you know, let's talk about like, you know,  the literal facts in your life.

It's like standing in Grand Central Station  and the way we think, our mindset,  it's like boarding a train.  You know that if you board a train, you're going somewhere, you're not staying in Grand Central Station, you're gonna go somewhere. If you're gonna board the train, called I'm in the wrong marriage. 

It's, that's not gonna take you. Like we know where that's gonna go basically. We can check it, we can see how does it feel? Then how do you behave? What results do you get?  We know basically where that's gonna go.  We wanna find out actually how long you've been riding that train  and what you've created from that belief  before anything.

Because most often what I find with women who are struggling is.  That what they've decided is true. We get to a place of, of not like, oh, it's not true. I'm in the right way. The first place to go to is, I have no idea.  All I know is that when I believe it, I do all these things and I've created this.  So now we're down to like, I wonder what it would be like if I didn't,  just what would it, what would it be like to be in my marriage without that  just to play, you know?

And like, see how do things shift? How do things change? Like let's just get the baseline again, because that's what we do as humans. No one's wrong for this. The way we, we behave as humans is we experience a subjective reality. We're making, we're meaning makers, right? So we're always making meaning about what's going on around us.

And so we draw conclusions, and then we live out those conclusions, and then we behave according to those conclusions. That's, that's just being a human.  So we wanna just get back like scientific curiosity is like my favorite like mode for coaching. It's like let's just find like, what are the facts actually?

What were the facts before we came up with this idea? How long have we been living this idea? What's happened because of it?  And then what? What happens when we just get to this place of like, huh? 

That to me it's like this very, first of all, it's easier to go there, I find  because we resist a 180, right? Right. We inherently resist making ourselves wrong. So this can just be this kind of like, it's almost like this very like open, neutral curiosity,  which is very accessible. It's a bit lighter. We also can make ourselves lots of promises.

Look, you don't have to do, this is not saying that you have to stay here. If you wanna go back to your belief, you could.  No one's telling you what to do. We're just gonna go play.  It goes back to the playfulness and the having fun and the going back to like, you know, children are learning the world, they're still not completely solidified.

We're talking about the formative years. That's exactly what happens when you're a kid. You have the formative years and that's how you learn about the world, and that's how you create your beliefs about everything. Mm-hmm. And so somebody is like, money is so awesome, and the other person's like, money is disgusting and how can we use  this information  to go back and be like, oh, let me just go back to playful.

Let me go back to discovery. Let me go back to questioning and inquiring and just having more fun. Mm-hmm. Playing with this thing.  Mm-hmm.  I love that. I love that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because it's like, you know, for most people who are thinking, I married the wrong guy, being told, don't worry, there's no such thing.

Anybody who goes under the chupah is always, you know, that is exactly what God wanted and is exactly what it needed to be, and you are officially the right person. And it's like, but everything in my life is showing me otherwise, right? I am not experiencing anything that other people are experiencing. I am, you know, in a stuck situation.

Mm-hmm. And so I feel like your answer was so helpful because what if,  what if you don't have to choose right now, if he's the right one or not? What if you just get to play with it and be like, what if he is, what if he's not not the right person? Yeah,   yeah. And I think, you know, I would be so curious to find out, just like what does it mean to her? 

Like, what does that mean? Like how would we know if he is the right guy? What are you seeing? It could be that now you said she's marrying off her kids and this is where it's coming up, right? Like it could be that maybe this is, you know,  not where she's at right now, but it could be that  she's seeing something and it's, it's, it's arousing something in her that's ready to be addressed. 

Oh, look how they look at each other. I mean, come on. Everyone wants to be a newlywed. That's so fun. I mean, it's also not, by the way, it's a huge rollercoaster. I go to weddings just to be in that energy and I look at my husband, I'm like, we, we went through so much. Like when we were this little, we knew nothing.

We were such separates and like, now we're so cool, you know? And we went through a lot like, I got to doing this because I went through that. Right? Like there's a lot to go through in order to create what you are. So you're like, I wanna be a newlywed, but I don't wanna be a newlywed. I totally love that.

Totally. Totally.  I want to just you know, clarify, this is not a specific person. It's a bunch of people who say the same thing. So I don't want somebody listening to this being like, she's calling me out. Right. It's not about you. It's not just you.

There is a bunch because this is the stage that I tend to attract is the women who are now revisiting or what is going on, you know, in this similar stage of my marriage. Mm-hmm. So, go ahead. Mm-hmm. Let's keep going now, now that we clarify. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it is just, you know, like, hear this also sometimes from women will be like you know, my, my our, our kallah is now doused and diamonds, and when's the last time I got a piece of jewelry?

Right? Like, there's, what if instead of saying the system is broken, this is so unfair, I never get what I need. What if we just go like, oh, I didn't even know that need was there.  Like, I have that sometimes where I'll just see something and I'm like, oh, how come I don't like, I'll resentful. How come I don't have no one gives me that?

And I'm like, oh, I didn't, here's a great example. I just had my birth.  Happy birthday. So we don't do, we don't thank you, but we don't really do birthdays. But I mean, I always said, I don't do birthdays. I don't make a big deal about birthdays. And this year, I don't know why. I was kinda like, how come no one did anything for my birthday?

Now I know why they didn't. 'cause I always tell 'em I don't do birthday.  But instead of being like, well, no one appreciates me, it's not a big enough deal and not important to anyone.  I could just be like, I didn't realize. But I think I, I think I did wanna be taken out to dinner. Could we do that?  Like, why not just give it the space to be a discovered desire? 

Yeah.  It's so beautiful. 'cause actually, I also, I had a big birthday this year and I turned 40 and I, I sent my daughter to get me the Big four and big zero, you know,  because I always wanted big balloons. I always wanted those big, gigantic balloons. They were always like, so. So out of reach. I don't know why my brain was thinking like, no, that's not, it's too much for you.

Or something. I sent my daughter, she went, she got them helium balloons. She went through the buses with like all of it and came home like, you better appreciate this. You know? And I did. I was like taking pictures with them and having fun with them. And of course my kids like pop them like two seconds later.

But did you know back on the bus butter?  Yeah, no, no, it's fine. One time was enough, but like, did you know that they're not that expensive and that they're totally doable and reachable? Like in your brain, something can look so like, oh, that's, it's just too much for me. I can't let my have the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And it's like, not only did I believe.  That I am able to have this, but like also I was able to do it for myself. I don't need anybody to like come up with the idea and surprise me. Yeah. And then for me to be like, I don't know, whatever. I'm like, no, I'm gonna, I'm going to intentionally think about what my desires are for this new birthday, which is different than all, you know, the years before.

And maybe next year I won't even care about the balloons. It was just like a momentary Oh, I can, it's okay. So I love that we're talking about that. This is a very, it's a very good point to say when you see something in someone else that suddenly wakes up something in, you realize that it's actually just  an invitation to listen.

Mm-hmm.  Yeah.  To connect. And so just, you know, so I mean, I imagine, I haven't married off any kids yet, but I imagine like that could be an interesting opportunity, like.  If you're noticing, oh gosh, I get to go on all these nice dates and she's getting all dressed up for him. Like, oh, maybe I'm gonna get myself a new something to wear and like schedule a date.

Like, you know, it can just be a chance to just listen to that or even just to journal like, what is it that's coming up for me? What am I noticing here that I'm now taking to mean that there was something wrong with my marriage the whole time?  Yeah. And if I just frame that as a desire,  which by the way, you've got a while to go, it's not like you're done now.

You're not a fully cooked egg just 'cause you're marrying off your kids.  There's lots that can happen in your marriage, right? Yeah. And and also there is, this is a.  A wonderful time. Like I, I use that time as like the dream time, right? Like, here we are with little kids, with big kids, with teenagers, with every age.

And, and I tell my husband like, oh, when we're old enough, where would you wanna visit? What would you wanna do? Like, you know, because there's this like, you know,  as if freedom, you know, somewhere in like the future, it's like there's hope for us to actually find time for each other. I call it my savta bucket list.

Yeah, soft like, oh, tablescapes are cute. Like, I kind of wanna do a tablescape. I'm like, Nope, I still have a 2-year-old savta bucket list that's going on there. Yeah, exactly. So one day you'll be a grandmother and you will do all these cool things and so will I. But the cool thing is that when you start to dream and talk about it, what happens is it starts to be real.

And so  this week I told my husband, I was like, I'm feeling down. I don't know. I like really good. Wanna like get out in nature and whatever. And he said, well, I have vacation next week. Why don't we go on a date? And he created something that he already knew. 'cause we talked about it was so easy.

And I'm like, wow, wow, that was awesome. And like, you know, it, it took me on such a high and out of that blue and out of that like situation because we already discussed what if and one day and, you know, so it's, it's really fun. To even just talk about, even if you're not there yet, because it starts to get the wheels turning of what would I want?

Where would I wanna go? Mm-hmm. What would I like to do? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like what actually matters to me.  Yeah.  Yeah. This is amazing. Okay, we went over time, so let's like wrap it up. Is there anything that you want to wrap everything that we've said so far up in a nice, you know, nice bow? Or is there something that you feel like the listeners need to hear?

I think it's just, I think the theme, to me, the takeaway is that this, youthful energy is an asset.  So whether someone listening is a newlywed and she's feeling like, oh, like I feel kind of nerdy that I'm like so into all the, no, no, no, cutie, go all in.  Have a blast. This is the time.

This is the time for you to just discover all the different dishes and to play and I dunno, my husband and I learned how to make sushi and cha like that was our thing. Like, but this is the time to just be young and it is a special way to build your marriage.  And then it's an it for us in every stage of marriage. 

Yes. I love that we're reminding ourselves that you can access shana rishona energy at any moment, right? Like, go learn to make sushi now. Right. Or go out on a date now or go  take these tests. You know, one of the things you were talking about, the test, I love the Sparky type test. Like there's a sparky test.

I've never heard this one. Go take it. It's so fun. And when I took mine, I realized it was so helpful for me. I'm gonna make my husband take it and it. Was a game changer just by understanding something about the other person and being able to like, oh, this validates so much of all the things that I thought were wrong about you.

And like, they're exactly right. This is just who you are. This is how you function. This is how you think, this is what you know. And because we're so different, why was, his brain or his operating system be so different than mine? Like, you think you should be the same person, but it every time, it's so powerful to do that.

Mm-hmm. So, mm-hmm. That would be a cool place to start if, you know, if anybody was listening here and like, like, I don't know how to be playful. Just go learn about yourself in a new way. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Amazing. Kayla, how can people find you? Where can they buy your stuff? Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah. So, so thank you first of all, so much for having me on. This is such a treat. Everything's very easy. It's all@kaylalevin.com.  I have a podcast called How to Glow. It's really funny we never talked about this 'cause it was recharged, but one of my favorite visuals is we talk about being the happy charging station for our family, where our family just kind of gravitates around us and charges up.

So that's why it's called How To Glow. It's, it's all based on this idea. I have a membership program for women who've been married a bit longer, but my real signature is working with newlyweds, either one-on-one or through my course, which is at kaylalevin.com/newlywed  that's awesome. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you. And thank you for the listeners for listening. Make sure you come back for next week's episode. It's amazing. Recharge and Business. And then afterwards we're doing Recharge and You, so this is actually really a fun topic that, you know, worked out really well. So thank you. And don't forget to be connected for real.

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Can you share it with them?  I am Robinson Bat chen Grossman from  connectedforreal. com. Thank you so much for listening and don't forget you can be connected for real.