In This Episode
Mascha Siekkötter is the host of the Connected for Real for this episode. She attended the Connected for Real Intimacy Masterclass and loved it so much because of the practical advice given by Rebbetzin Bat-Chen. Mascha interviews Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman, about the Connected for Real Intimacy Masterclass, her story and mission as a marriage coach, and some common issues married women have, such as bringing back the fireworks. This episode is a preview of Rebbetzin Bat-Chen’s approach to bringing God into your life and marriage.

Highlights
02:08 Rebbetzin Bat-Chen has been married for 15 years, and this is what inspired Connected for Real.
02:42 The answer to any problem or feeling “stuck” is always in marriage. Rebbetzin Bat-Chen received a mission from God to help married women bring God into their relationship with their husband.
04:57 In the Jewish community, intimacy is a private topic, so Rebbetzin Bat-Chen builds trust through her one-on-ones to help women open up but still feel comfortable talking about intimacy.
05:40 Intimacy is taught to Jewish brides through a kallah teacher, but there isn’t usually a follow-up once the woman is married.
06:43 The most common question that women ask Rebbetzin Bat-Chen about intimacy is “How do I bring back the fireworks?”
07:41 Rebbetzin Bat-Chen’s mission is to end mediocre marriages.
08:57 The goal of the Connected for Real Masterclass is for every woman to know that it’s possible to feel amazing about life, marriage, and intimacy.
09:50 Marriage should always allow you to grow.
10:21 Opening up about intimacy or other deep topics with a girlfriend is different with a marriage coach, and it’s okay to choose who you talk to these about.
11:28 Rebbetzin Bat-Chen shares that she feared success, not failure when she started as a marriage coach on Connected for Real.
11:51 God is the reason why Rebbetzin Bat-Chen started her mission to help bring Him to the center of marriage.
14:03 The approach that Rebbetzin Bat-Chen takes as a marriage coach is nice and delicate in order for you to change your mindset about your marriage.
15:39 Another question that was always asked in the Intimacy Masterclass was “What if I’m not in the mood?”
16:26 Mindset is the first thing that is addressed in the Intimacy Masterclass, and Rebbetzin Bat-Chen does this in a concrete way so you believe it’s possible to feel amazing about intimacy.
20:04 The advice that Rebbetzin Bat-Chen gives is always practical and easy to do, because she believes that you can ground the connection you have with God and apply His love in your marriage and in the real world.
22:23 Mascha attended the Intimacy Masterclass and loved the experience. More information about it can be found at connectedforreal.com.
22:56 How we were conditioned and brought up made us believe that we have to do things in order to receive something good, but when it comes to marriage, your spouse just wants to make you feel good and appreciated even if you don’t do anything.
26:36 Receiving is a feminine super power that we need to connect to.
27:36 Rebbetzin Bat-Chen shares how she stopped being dependent on her husband for happiness and relied on God instead.
31:18 Mascha is an artist and art teacher who teaches artists how to sell their art and market it.
34:08 Journaling helped Rebbetzin Bat-Chen become more visible in her field, and also guided her to become aligned with her mission for God.
36:08 Rebbetzin Bat-Chen has experienced vulnerability hangovers, but the anchor thought that keeps her safe is that what happened was as it was supposed to be.
37:37 The most important takeaway that Rebbetzin Bat-Chen wants women to remember is that we are all going through the same thing.

Links
5 Surprising Ways to Improve Your Marriage
Marriage Breakthrough Retreat
Cathy Heller
Brené Brown

Books Mentioned
The Empowered Wife by Laura Doyle

Let’s Connect!
Connected for Real is on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn
For more information about Connected for Real, visit the website!

Subscribe to the Podcast
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REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
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. The following is one of the many conversations I had with experts and professionals about real life and how it affects marriage. Let me know your takeaways on Instagram or Facebook, @connectedforreal. Enjoy. And we are live. Welcome everyone. I am Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman from connectedforreal.com, and this is Mascha. She is my buddy in one of the courses that we’re doing together, and it’s just been so much fun to work with her back and forth. Both of us are working on our businesses, and Mascha decided to turn the tables on me. Usually, I’m the one interviewing but today she wants to ask me questions and have you guys join in on the fun. Let’s do it.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
Yay! I’m so excited, Bat-Chen. [Laughs]

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
So I’m excited. I’m a little nervous because I’m not used to being in the—we can start. Yeah. So I love doing things live because I love having you here and I love all of the energy. So let’s start. I’m ready. [Laughs]

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
I just wanted to start at the beginning because you’re a marriage coach, and now you have something that’s called Intimacy Masterclass. Of course, I did it. I’m so excited because I loved it and so I want to tell you more–to ask you more about how did it come about, and how did it get started for you because to talk about intimacy—I think it’s very important for women. Sometimes we just flunk it and think, “Oh, not for me. Not today,” but today’s day we are going to talk about it.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yeah, so I started with marriage. First of all because I had to go through so much in my marriage, and thank God we just celebrated 15 years. We got married on Hanukkah, and it’s been 15 years. In those 15 years, we had to go through a lot of our own growth, figuring out, what are we doing with this thing, and I—

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
Children—

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Children, yes. I got six children, and we had to figure all of this out. With time, I was realizing that I was trying all the things that were the wrong things, and when I finally stumbled on the right things, I was completely shocked. “Why aren’t people talking about this more? Why aren’t people giving the right advice? Why is the most common advice that you get the stuff that makes you almost fall and feel like there’s no hope?” and so I almost got this mission from God. I don’t know how it came about but it started after I had my latest baby, who is now two and a half years old. I just had to start helping everyone, and it started with giving any advice. It became really clear to me that all of life’s stuckness—anything you’re stuck—it’s not just one thing. It’s a million other things. Everything feels it’s like, “Ah” and it’s usually your career and your money, the kids, parenting you have no energy—everything is connected. I found that the answer is always in marriage. If you could fix the marriage, everything else will trickle down and will solve itself. So, I’m the type of person who really likes to find the root of the problem, and when I found the root that was marriage, I was like, “Wow. This is amazing. I have to focus on this,” because if I can focus on the thing that will move the needle the most, then I can really help people—because I help you a little bit here and a little bit there, and adjust, adjust, adjust—but if I can really click that thing into place and just make it all work, that was something that really made me excited. The more work I did with marriage, and by the way, I tried making a group program but that fell through—it was a failure that up I upcycled to become a learning experience, and I learned a lot of that women don’t to be in a group setting when they’re talking about their marriage, and usually it’s the deepest things that come up so the last thing you want is for a group to be there. Even if the group is three people—anything more than one-on-one just doesn’t feel right. So I learned from that that really I need to focus on one-on-one, and the more one-on-ones I did, and the more processes, transitions, and transformations I saw, the more I realized that there was even a deeper root that was really, really hard to crack and that was intimacy. What’s happening is that this is something that is very private, especially in the Jewish community. We’re very modest about our intimacy. We’re very modest about all of the things that have to do with holiness and separation—things that are really close to us. These are the things that are the core of Jewish values so they really are very important. When we have a problem there, we really don’t have who to turn to and when you learn about it for the first time—when you’re a bride, it’s called a kallah teacher. They’re sort of giving you a lot of information. They’re giving you a lot of laws. They’re giving you a lot of technicalities. They’re giving you a lot of things to know. They’re just trying to throw all this information at you, and you are very overwhelmed besides the fact that you have no idea. It’s just this great big thing and—

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
It is well intentioned?

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I mean, well intentioned for sure, and the truth is that I don’t think I could do a better job with a person who has no experience. My kallah teacher was amazing. She gave me as much as she could with what she had and with what I was able to contain. Also, we’re a container and our container can’t contain too much, especially since we have no experience so I found that really after that experience, you don’t ever have a follow-up—let’s say five years down the line or seven years, that one or ten years down the line. Let’s upgrade, teach you, answer all your questions, and really help you out. There’s nothing. So with everything that you have, there’s a lot of question marks and a lot of questions might create a lot of frustration, a lot of resentment, and these things are really hard because you bottle them up. You push them down. This is how it’s supposed to be. The crazy thing is when I had the questionnaire before I gave the masterclass, the questionnaire was like, “Send me any questions and tell me what you’d to learn.” So many people said, “How do I bring back the fireworks?” and, “How do I get used to the fact that things are just blah? How do I get used to it?” I mean, that’s so sad. It’s almost like we expect that. Now, we have to just get used to this mediocre. I was reading a book called the Empowered Wife by Laura Doyle, and in her book she really puts it out there, “My mission is to end world divorce.” That is her mission and I was thinking actually my mission is to end mediocre marriages. We’re married. It’s fine we’re not getting divorced. Things aren’t bad or something explosive. It’s just fine, and fine is fine but it’s not fine. It’s really not okay for you to feel you’re sort of in a routine and you’re trying to just sort of tread water, and eventually, maybe the kids will grow up, maybe something will change, maybe something will some shoe will drop, or some coin will cling. I don’t know what we’re expecting but really frustrating, and I had to go through this. I found that I had no one to really—I just didn’t know where to turn.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
Yeah, I can imagine. I can imagine because I live in Netherlands and you have a totally different situation and maybe with your culture and I understand that but there are parts that I can relate to and I think also that a lot of women want to things to get better but they don’t know how and they don’t know how to stand up for themselves. That’s what I really like about your masterclass because it’s about all the important things that you have to know as a woman to keep it together in a marriage.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
My goal is that every woman should know that it is completely possible to feel amazing about your intimacy, about your marriage, about your life—the whole thing about just getting used to it and settling and being mediocre, that’s maybe good for a temporary measure of “Let’s just get through this war and then we’ll deal with it” type of thing but in regular life you shouldn’t have to give up on things. You shouldn’t have to settle or be okay with whatever. You really can dream, hope, desire and just love your life. That’s my goal.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
Yeah, and it’s also for women maybe more cyclical. When you have a child, things are different after that with your husband, and then when child grows up, things are different again and you have to reinvent yourself every time.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yes, you look at me. I’ve been reinvented. You know what, I really feel like marriage is meant to help be there for you, to support you, to grow, and we’re all there to support each other and growth then in this life. Life is about growing, finding, and creating higher consciousness and then sort of using that ceiling to become your floor and going up a level and up a level. We’re always growing. I love growing. I love developing. Yes, we’re very similar in that. It’s really fun.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
And then, the thing is maybe when we get together with just our girlfriends, it’s different when we have a marriage coach or someone from the outside that’s looking with us at the situation because when we are with girlfriends, we often tend to be shy and to have shame, to act like everything’s fine, and don’t go into the deep stuff and I know you’re all about deep stuff so could you tell me about that?

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I love deep stuff. I’ll tell you what. Another thing is that in the Jewish community, you don’t really talk about these things with your girlfriends unless you’re really in a one-on-one, and you’re just very comfortable with someone but for the most part it really feels there is no avenue—nowhere to turn. I am very private and very modest. Even just opening up and becoming vocal on the internet was a really hard thing for me because it feels like I’m opening up myself and showing you my insides. It really is so deep and I feel like I’m shining my light, and it feels scary. So actually, my fear wasn’t feeling failure. It was fear of success. It was if I open up and I show the world what I’m about, then that’s scary. I just want to close up and hide.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
You’re brave for doing this, Bat-Chen so I really applaud you for that. You are really brave for taking this on, for looking it in the eye, and facing it at all.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yes, and I’ll tell you why I did it because the whole time I’m thinking I’m asking myself “Who am I to do this? Who am I to do this?” I can think of a million people who are way more I-don’t-know-what than me. I was sitting down, and I think I was either journaling, meditating, or something. It suddenly came to me that the answer is, “Who am I not to do this?” If God brought me all the way to here, I’m working with all these women, I’m seeing this problem, I’m feeling so passionate about this issue, and I should be, “Who am I?” and God is there—He’s sitting there going, “I set you up for this. Who are you not? What are you doing just saying no to the job I gave you?” So I was like, “Okay, okay. Fine I will do it.” Then I just jumped in the water. I sort of just close my eyes and, “Okay, fine I’m doing it.” I put it out on the internet and I say, “I’m doing it next week,” and I just did it. I got six people who came live and then a couple of people who got the recording. You got the recording and some other people. The feedback I’m getting is tremendous. First of all, the people who came live—they didn’t even go home and practice and then tell me how it went. On the spot, they were like,  “This is amazing. It has to be taught to everyone. I’m sending all my friends to you. This is not things that anybody has taught, is talking about, or is teaching.” The other thing that I realized in the beginning—also the other issue I had was there’re all these people whose specialty is this, and who am I to come and say I have this passion and I need to speak about this when I myself don’t feel comfortable saying words or getting it out of my mouth? All I could say is, “I’m calling it intimacy,” and that’s pretty much all I say. I am really, really private about it, and I realized that all those other people I didn’t feel comfortable going to. So it must be that people like me are also not feeling comfortable to go to them, and they need someone me who’s going to address it in a very modest way, in a very clean way. I’m not gonna start naming things. I’m not gonna start giving you a whole anatomy class of how everything works. I’m just going to give you all of the things you need to know and the mindset, which I think is number one—the mindset behind what it is that we’re working with, then afterwards the practical and I give it all, but I do in such a nice and delicate way, right?

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
Yeah.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
You did it, yeah. I’m not beating about around the bush. I’m not trying to avoid it. I’m really saying the things that need to be said but I’m saying the way that makes me feel comfortable, and I want that that was the secret to why they were so excited because they felt comfortable asking questions. They felt comfortable going through and really writing me emails afterwards, texting mem giving me testimonials—they were “Wow, this was amazing,” and that’s turned me on to the fact that, “Okay, I think I did something.”

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
Yeah, you did something great and I think you hit a good nerve there. I loved taking the class, and I love that it was very detailed and very actionable. So, it was just things that I could do right away, and for me, it’s not always with intimacy. It’s not always difficult but sometimes it’s, “How do you get out of the funk?” or “How do you get out of it when the kids are in your bed at 4:30 in the morning or they are going to sleep with you?” and then things are different. They just are. Yeah, or you feel so tired at the end of the day that you think, “Oh my God, I’m just looking at my phone.” That’s how I feel.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
That that was one of the top questions that was asked before the class is “What if I’m not in the mood?” It’s normal. It’s okay, but usually we’re not in the mood because we just don’t think there’s hope. You’re not going to be in the mood if you already got used to the fact that it’s just blah. So somebody called it boring, somebody called it all these different things that we name it things that shows what we really believe. So why would you be in the mood? Why? I’m not in the mood when I think about how boring, frustrating, or resentful. Oh, no. I want you to really change that mindset and be, “Oh this is going to be amazing.” Okay, fine. For amazing, I’m willing to work. I’m willing to do something—

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
For our love life. [Laughs]

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Thank God. So that’s pretty much it.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
So what can women expect after they have taken the masterclass? Because I really liked it, but what can you expect your marriage to be like or what your mindset will be about marriage?

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
The first thing that we do is we really address the mindset because if you don’t believe you deserve good, if you don’t believe that you’re worthy of feeling good, then it doesn’t matter how many things I’m going to tell you, how much advice I’m going to give you, how many practical tips, things, and whatevers. Nothing’s going to help you because in the core, you don’t believe that you deserve it. So the mindset is the first thing we switch and we really address it in a very concrete way and in a way that makes it really clear that we have to really believe and own it. We really have to want it and also just believe it’s possible.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
That’s so empowering. Yeah, I love it.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I’m so glad because it’s something that I had to go through. We were talking about this the other day, and I realized that this was one of the things that’s the enemy. We were discussing how some people say, “I’ve tried everything. I’ve just tried everything,” when they’re trying to save a marriage, when trying to make it better, when trying anything—it’s like, “I’ve tried everything. I give up. There’s nothing else,” and I said to Mascha, “Yes, I’ve tried everything.” I’ve tried canceling myself out. I’ve tried becoming the rug everybody’s stepping on. I’ve tried com completely silencing myself and just empowering the other person. All those things failed. Guess why. Because that is the exact opposite way. We think it’s going to work. It’s, “If I just lower myself a tiny bit more and lower myself as a tiny bit more, and become almost horizontal so that nobody could see me. If I don’t take care of myself and I just completely take care of everyone else and maybe then I will change the world.” Actually, it’s not true. The only way I was able to help my husband—the only way I was able to empower him—the only way I was able to even just free him from being the bad guy was by starting to take care of myself and not being dependent on him. Not waiting for him to do all the things for me and to give me the love that I think that I so—it’s an empty pit. You’ll never fill it but you always need more, and it’s just not gonna work unless you decide to do it for yourself. So once I took myself into my own hands, and was “Okay, this is what I’m doing. I deserve better and I’m gonna do this,” and the more I empowered myself, the more that he was free to become a nice, awesome husband, and it has nothing to do with him. That was one of the things that I had to see on my own, and it was really hard to face—was that he’s not the problem. It was really hard to say because it’s really convenient. You say about the kids it’s a really convenient excuse to say, “Oh, it’s not working because the kids. My kids are all home it’s Covid blah—” but it’s not. If something is important to you then you will find the time. You’ll find the way. You will find something that will make it work. Same thing. It’s really a very easy excuse to say, “It’s not working out because my husband is a total jerk. He’s a loser. He won’t this and that.” I’m into growth and he’s not growing. He’s behind and he’s holding me back. These are all things I was saying, and they’re not because—my husband knows this. He’s amazing. I love him and I always loved him but I always felt he was holding me back. I was like on a leash and I was limited and really, I was limiting myself.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
Do you think there is something in there that women are trying to do all those things but they somehow they shy away from taking responsibility and be in charge? Maybe they think, “Oh, it’s more romantic if the man is in charge,” or something that but when you are truly in charge you can let the man be just himself and then—oh, it gets so much better. So, speaking from the other end, I would totally recommend taking it on and in a fun way. Just being with you in your class. It’s fun, it’s easy, it’s not as hard as you think. It’s not you have to be a bully or anything. You’re just yourself. Your best self.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
When I called it Connected for Real, that was the reason is because I was super connected to God. I was super connected to myself, and I was connecting to people around me. I didn’t notice this because to me this was natural. I thought everybody is connected but apparently, it’s not, and all my friends when I was asking “What’s my thing?” They all mirrored back to me the same thing we’re, “You have this thing about connection,” and I’m connected for real. I want it to not just be a thought, “Oh it’s up there in the sky. It’s just connected.” No, I want to ground it. I want to bring it to the real world. I want you to really be really practical, so all of my advice is always very practical, always very down to earth but the goals are really lofty. I really want you to be happy. I want you to feel connected. I want you to really know what you want. I want you to get in touch with yourself. I want you to live, breathe, be happy.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
That’s what I like about you. Just your enthusiasm and how you just talk about this is who you are how I got to know you. You’re so full of life and so full of learning new things. You just want to help people to do better. I love it.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
How can people take the masterclass or do something like that?

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
On connectedforreal.com, which is my website. DM me, PM me, send me a message, and I will send you the link. The class is $97.00. It’s totally worth it, right?

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
Really, yeah. I loved it.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yeah, one of the ladies walked out. She was like, “Ninety-seven dollars? I would have paid $970.” I’m shocked. That was amazing. It was great.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
I wanted to ask you something like how come we don’t always think we deserve the best thing because we were talking about it, and then I had my boyfriend this afternoon and he told me “Shall we go to the place that you really like where they have pancakes, and would go just for fun? Just take the pancake and get it.” “I’m asking this for three weeks and now we’re gonna do it because we had an agreement that you should be clipping the hatches today. Are you getting out of it or what? Why you do you want to go on the date right now? I don’t want it,” and then I was like, “Oh, wait a minute. Oh, wait a minute. Okay, he’s asking me on a date.” Let’s do it. Let’s have fun, but why do we initially get drawn back from that?

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yeah, so first of all, I think it’s condition. It’s how we grow up. We have to do things in order to receive things. If you clean up then you’ll get to watch the movie. If you do this, then you get that. So, it’s this condition thing that we learn, that we can only deserve things that we like or things that are good, if we do the hard stuff or if we pay the price or whatever, it is that we believe. There’s all these limiting beliefs about everything free always costs money or you always will have to pay back a favor. There’s all these things that we have holding us back. If somebody wants to help you and he’s, “No. No thanks. I don’t want to have to owe you.” “I just asked you to help you. I have no agenda,” and so these are things that are limiting us from being able to just receive and I think that those are just limiting beliefs that we have to go through and we have to just sort of shed. We’ve grown up we’re now adults. We can understand that a no is a no, and a yes is a yes. If I ask someone for something and they say, “Yes,” I don’t have to question that, “Oh do you actually mean it?” “Of course, that’s why I said yes,” and somebody who says yes when they don’t mean it—that’s their problem they have to work on their boundaries they have to work on their issues but that’s not your responsibility as an adult, okay? Yes, we question children when we’re not sure because we want to help them really get in touch with themselves but as an adult we really want to get in touch with things are what they are. We’re women so we totally read between the lines. we know that, “Oh, I know you actually meant when you said you loved me. You actually meant you really don’t.” Forget it. Just take whatever he says and take it. Just accept the compliment. It doesn’t mean you weren’t pretty yesterday. It just means you were pretty today. Get on with it. That’s all it is. So we are really good at reading between the lines, trying to figure out what’s behind the motives, or just believing that just when we were kids you have to pay for whatever you get or you have to deserve things. Really, in reality, if you look at babies they didn’t nothing in order to get love. They did nothing in order to be alive. They did nothing in order to be fed. They’re just human beings. They were born into this world. God wants to give and give and give them all the goodness in the world, and he’s not sitting around calculating what they did or didn’t do. So your inner soul and your life here is completely not dependent on what you do or don’t do in order to deserve good, and when we can connect to that then we can really receive in a much easier way. Receiving is one of those super powers. That’s very feminine but we don’t connect to because we’re scared. That’s what I think what you were saying before with your example. There’s fear in there and there’s, “Wait are you trying to get away with something? Are you trying to find me—are you trying to get me to do something? I’m not really into doing what are you trying to do,” and really, it’s “Sure, thanks. Let’s do it. I’m excited.” Do you realize how much we hold ourselves back from just being happy and just being ourselves? I mean, think about it. When I was dating, and when all of us were young dating, and cute and happy, that’s what was so magnifying to the husbands. They just want to be near you because you’re so bubbly, happy, and in touch with what makes you happy. “Oh, I love flowers.” Oh, by the way, did you see the flower?

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
Yeah, I got one today too.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yes, you should all learn this trick. Do nothing and receive a flower. Yes, thank God. It’s a very funny story, actually—the story about the flower. My husband never got me flowers until finally, one day, I was in a marriage class a long time ago and she said something about how I’m dependent on him for my happiness. I was like, “Oh my God.” So, I went home and I really did all this work. In Hebrew, being dependent also means I am hung on him—almost hanging hangers. So I had this imagery before I fell asleep, I was really trying to relax and I see this hanger rod that’s my husband and all these different hangers on it. I took one off and I said I don’t want to be dependent on you anymore. I want to be dependent on God for my happiness, and I hung it on God. I took another one and I was like I don’t want to be dependent on you for my love. I want to be dependent on God, and I just took off and then put onto this God hook in my mind. This is all in my head, okay? Oh, I’m a visual person. I felt I was literally untying myself from what was holding me back, and after that I said nothing. I didn’t tell my husband about it. I didn’t even tell him what went on in the class because he really couldn’t care less. He’s not into marriage classes or going into places at all. It’s just we’re very different and that’s okay, and so when I come home some people are like, “Oh, what did you learn?” “Here, it’s nothing.” It’s “Oh, okay. Let’s go to sleep,” or “Let’s clean up,” or whatever—very technical, which is fine, so I didn’t say anything, and the next morning I get a rose on my desk right here and I was like, “What is this?” It’s like, “I don’t know. I just felt I wanted to, so I went outside, I picked you the best one, I put it on your desk, and I surprised you,” and I was like, “Does this have anything to do with what just happened last night? I was shocked but he had no idea why and I can feel that there was something that released in me the ability to receive when I was finally not dependent, and that it’s such a secret story. I feel like I just shared my guts with you, but it just illustrates exactly what I do with people. First of all, I do a lot of guided imagery. I do a lot of meditation and guided meditation—that things that just blow my mind. My mind—I’m not even talking about their mind. Sometimes I go into it, and I just don’t know what to expect, but I know that inside we have the answers and I’m just waiting for them to come out. Sometimes it’s so much easier when it’s someone else telling you the answer when you visualize a different person, somebody from the bible, or something that’s distant and somebody who you trust, who knows the answer and when they tell it to you it’s, “Oh, that was what I needed to hear.” Of course, it is because I believe it’s all inside us. It’s our subconscious finally being able to be heard. The process is so beautiful and that’s why I love my one-on-one so much—is because I’m able to really stretch that. So, you asked before how to follow up. I think the best follow-up is the one-on-ones. That’s my favorite.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
You’re so passionate and you just deliver—deliver the goods. Thank you. Yeah, and well I think we discussed most. If you want me to ask more questions I can but I think—

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Actually, I want to turn the tables a little bit around because I went out of my comfort zone. I’m happy you did it. I want to pick on you a little bit. So, I know that you are an art teacher, and you’re also an artist who puts your work out and is really passionate about helping other people do the same.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
Yeah, so thanks. Yeah, well what I found is that I see a lot of artists that make beautiful work and just don’t know how to sell their art or how to get it across and find their audience so that’s what I’m all about. I’m setting up a masterclass right now for them so they can connect to each other, and we can have people come up that tell about how to sell your art, what to do, how to market it, so this is fun.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
It’s gonna be so fun. I would say it’s a mastermind group. You’re so good at running these things, by the way. She really is. I love how you facilitate so beautifully when there’s a group—because by the way, we’re part of a group and Mascha is so good at just making it all flow. It always feels so easy flowing, and just—

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
Yeah, I love to do that and I love for everybody to feel heard, to be heard, and to be seen, and that’s one of my things that—well, I didn’t as a person—I didn’t always feel seen so that’s something that really gets me ticked, and I’ll try to make sure every time when I’m around people that they feel seen and they feel heard because I think it’s very important. I think it’s so fantastic that we can do this on the internet. It’s amazing. So yeah, if I have time, I can do this, and why not do it this way because it’s beautiful. You’re in Israel. I’m in the Netherlands. We’re talking. We’re laughing. Yeah, all the goodies.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
It’s so fun. it’s just been the gift that Covid gave me was the ability to really see how connected we really are. We thought we were connected but no. Now, we’re connecting on a deeper level. People are looking for a different type of connection. Now that we are so isolated, and so I’m having real conversations. I’m having real group meetings, and I’m having real coaching sessions with people that blow my mind how deep we can go, and how connected we can get. It’s just really amazing.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
Yeah, yeah. I love it.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
It’s a real gift.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
Well, I just wanted to know what was it for you to become more visible, to do this, to do all these things—you were brave.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
It was scary and get yourself a journal because it’s less about the technicalities. Somebody could teach you, “Okay, go on YouTube, go on Facebook, go on Instagram. Go do this. Go say this. Go whatever,” but it’s not about the technicalities as much as the mindset work that has to happen behind the scenes of who wants to hear me, what if they don’t like me, what if—a million things come up, and this is my third journal already. I do really well with getting it out on paper and really putting it down because when I talk, when I talk to people, it’s different. When I talk to myself, if I’m just walking and just thinking—so if I’m thinking something that I don’t actually like or that I think is going to take me somewhere scary, I just sort of pretend I didn’t ask that or I don’t go down that road, but when I’m writing I can’t avoid it. I keep writing and then I’m like, “Why? Why do I feel this way? What’s going on? What’s behind the scenes? What am I believing? What is going on here?” and then I can really say, “Okay, it’s probably not true. Let’s find out what really is the truth. People really are not gonna like me.” I mean, okay so fine don’t like me if you don’t like me stop watching. Really, you don’t have to. I’m not making you but in those days, that was the scariest thing for me—is, “What if they don’t like me? What if I say the wrong thing? What if I don’t know what to say? What if—what if—what if—” and it’s like, “Okay, chill. Take a breather. God is going to help you. He’s right there with you. He puts the words in my mouth. He helps me have clarity. If I’m doing this for Him, then he’s here for me. We’re in this together.” Yeah, and that really is one of my anchor thoughts. We can do this. It’s a lot of mindset work. A lot.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
You got great reactions and then do you have a—Brené Brown talks about this—vulnerability hangovers?

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yes, so there was one time when I was on a podcast and it was being recorded and then she was going to put it out two days later, and I called her up and I said, “Can you please edit that one line I said about my husband? If it goes back to him, I am in so much trouble,” and it wasn’t even something mean but it was something that just I didn’t feel appropriate. I felt comfortable asking her to take it out but for the most part I feel like today with the story of the hankers and my flower—it’s not something I tell people. It’s something very, very deep that I had to go through and I just felt it was the right thing to do so I told it to you, and apparently, it resonated with Annie who, by the way, wrote a comment that we loved the analogy Maybe there was a reason why I had to tell it and maybe that feeling inside me was true, and I really needed to do it. Once I do it though, I feel like, “Okay, it’s out. Whatever.” If it had to be out, it had to be out. So I guess the anchor thought that keeps me safe from having that hangover is believing that it was as it was supposed to be. If it happened, it had to happen, and it’s not in my hands anymore. It’s not in my control.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
Yeah, and I think we need more women that can tell their stories and tell all the things—how they experience things because I think on a deep level we all experience something like that.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yes. The most important takeaway that I want women to walk out from any of my lives is we’re all going through it. It’s not like I have a perfect marriage and I have a perfect husband, and that’s why I can have an amazing life, and you just happen to get this terrible lot with this ugh husband who’s just ugh, your life is ugh, and everything is ugh. So it just happens to be that you’re gonna have a bad life and I’m gonna have a good life because that’s how—no. We’re all doing the same things. We’re all dealing with the same stuff. I have stuff in my house even now. My husband said, “What time am I going to be able to get into my room?” and I was like, “I don’t know. I’m locking you out, and hopefully in 45 minutes,” and we’re ready in 47 minutes. So I feel like, “Uh oh. Now I’m in conflict,” and it is what it is. I have a husband who’s normal—human—is allowed to get upset, is allowed to get angry. He’s allowed to get frustrated and I’m human so I’m allowed to get angry, upset, and frustrated. I want you to know that we’re all in this together. We all get lazy, and we all get whatever—any other thing that we get, and that’s fine, but what do we do with it—that’s what I want everybody to think about. “What am I going to do about this situation now to change the trajectory of where it’s going?” Because I can’t change the past and I can’t change right now what’s happening but I can change what’s going to happen in a minute, in an hour, in a day, in 10 years, and it doesn’t have to keep being this way just because it is this way now. That’s, I think the biggest takeaway—is make a choice every moment of where you want to go. Which train do you want to get on? Because if you’re just going to stay on the train and be, “I wonder what will be.” I’m not wondering at all if you just stay on the train then the train will go where it’s going, but if you get off the train and get on a different train—Cathy Heller says, “Sometimes it’s a two degree turn but if you’re in the middle of the ocean, you end up in a different continent.” That’s amazing. One of the women said, “I can’t do this. I would need my husband to turn 360 degrees in order for him to whatever” I’m like, “Yeah, then he’d be back in the same spot. I don’t think you meant 360,” but she needs him to completely change and it’s if you can change one percent, one degree, then we’re already adjusting, then we’re already moving somewhere, then we’re ready changing the location, the trajectory, the direction. That’s amazing.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
Yeah, it’s the whole world. You can just change yourself, and that’s something that you do gradually. Yes, when you’re feeling “I can do this,” so yeah I really love your class and I think people should just go and see it. you do so

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yes, come join the Intimacy Masterclass. I’m fixing up the presentation to be a lot more awesome and it looks good.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
Yeah, it looks so good.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Thank you so much, Mascha. This is so much fun. So thank you, Mascha for coming.

MASCHA SIEKKÖTTER
Thank you for having me.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
And that’s it! Thank you for listening to the very end. I would love if you can leave a review and subscribe to the podcast. Those are things that tell the algorithm, this is a good podcast and make sure to suggest it to others. Wouldn’t it be amazing if more people became more connected for real? And now, take a moment and think of someone who might benefit from this episode. Can you share it with them? I am Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman from connectedforreal.com. Thank you so much for listening, and don’t forget, you can be connected for real.

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