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In this Episode
There is a duality in everything. Georgina Halabi and I discuss the contrast between male and female that can affect your marriage, and how to overcome it. This episode provides practical tips you can use to enhance your relationship with your spouse.
Highlights
1:22 Georgina Halabi is so passionate about what she does. Get to know this awesome coach!
2:32 Win-win situations in marriage are achieved through communication. Does polarity have to exist in marriage? You can both be subjectively right in your marriage.
06:46 Georgina opens up about what she is focusing on this year, which opens a discussion about authenticity and being open to being wrong. Having a safe space where you can be vulnerable with your husband.
11:26 Take note of this short mindfulness exercise on self-acceptance and letting things be.
11:56 Dualities are dependent on each other. Sometimes we think that things are supposed to go a certain way but accepting the way the world is allows you to use it as fuel to move forward, and this helps change the way you view the world.
18:01 There is an obvious difference between males and females. The superpower of females is to give males credit for their protective and supportive instinct.
23:03 We have the fundamental need to be recognized that we are enough, so acknowledging your partner is important in a relationship.
23:34 Despite the differences between males and females, we can possess both characteristics.
26:30 Life is very important. In Hebrew, we believe that “When you’re saving a person, you’re saving a whole world.”
27:32 Learn about the Marriage Breakthrough Retreat. Sign up and be part of the waiting list!
30:26 For the Marriage Breakthrough Retreat, I give hot topic bonuses for people who sign up. I give a sneak peek on the topic on parenting and marriage.
32:00 There is also a duality we can learn from our children, and that is to become children again. (Another sneak peek of the Marriage Breakthrough Retreat)
36:54 Receiving is one of a woman’s superpower, even if it is ingrained in us to keep on giving. But giving is receiving. The ability to receive is the ability to give.
42:11 The secret to being happy in your marriage and life starts with you.
44:28 We all strive for wholeness, where we feel loved and complete, but being whole doesn’t mean perfection.
47:03 Get to know Georgina’s work for internal alignment, being present, and open-hearted.
References
Georgina Halabi – Website
Connected for Real YouTube Channel: Video on Perfection
Marriage Breakthrough Retreat – Sign up for the waiting list!
Brené Brown – Website | Instagram
Gina DeVee – Website | Instagram
Laura Doyle – Website | Instagram
Kate Northrup – Website | Instagram
Books Mentioned
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown
The Audacity to be Queen by Gina DeVee
The Empowered Wife by Laura Doyle
Do Less: A Revolutionary Approach to Time and Energy Management for Ambitious Women by Kate Northrup
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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Transcript
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–today with Georgina. How are you? She is from Singapore, and I know, isn’t that cool? I have a friend in Singapore. Did you guys know that? Let me introduce myself for those who don’t know, I am Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman, and I am a marriage coach. I help women, who are more successful than their husbands, bring peace into their home by sort of creating that alignment and getting the support they need in order to fuel them to continue succeeding and to move even further and Georgina is– you know what, you tell everyone why you’re so awesome and what you do because I love the way you describe it.
GEORGINA HALABI
Thank you. I’m a mindset and well-being coach, and I help individuals, high achievers balance out a success and inner peace. I work with people all across the globe from Australia to Mexico to Europe and I’m very happy to be here with you
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Oh my gosh. This is so fun. We just met last week, and we had this amazing discussion back and forth, and then we ended up having a Zoom call. It was just so much fun and it was all about how we’re both fascinated with the duality of the world and the dichotomy of what’s happening with male and female, and light and dark, and head and heart, and outer and inner, and spiritual and physical and it’s like, “Woo, we have to talk about this,” and of course I always bring marriage into it because this is a show about everything that affects marriage. Your outer success, the stressors, everything that’s going on outside in the world, and your inner peace is definitely affecting your marriage and so that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. So Georgina you want to start us off a little bit on that topic?
GEORGINA HALABI
Let me just pop something out of the air, Bat-Chen. Polarity. Polarity is a big one. This is good, that is bad. I am right, you are wrong. That’s all about duality and polarity. Want to discuss that?
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I actually think that one of the things in the mindset shift world is sort of like getting out of that good-bad, win-lose, finding win-win, and finding how we’re both human in marriage, especially you’re like, “He’s the bad one. That makes me the good one, and we’re all happy.” It’s sort of like it works for everyone but him, and of course you’re miserable because you want your husband to be happy and to be a winner also. It’s not like it makes you feel better but it’s a survival mechanism. Sort of like a protective thing that we have. That if I’m right, then it’s okay but it’s not actually okay. It makes me feel resentful and icky. One of the things I love about The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People that he writes in his book–that the goal is to get to a win-win. How do we become equals? Then we can actually talk and communicate, and have a really human discussion about what’s going on. Also with marriage, and the man the woman. There’s, “If he’s on top, then she’s feeling controlled,” and, “She’s feeling the bottom–a victim and whatever if he’s on the bottom,” then he’s feeling inadequate, and “I’m not really good enough,” and so she’s looking down at him for not being enough. She thinks, “Whatever.” It’s always going to be bad. Anytime you don’t have that equilibrium thing where you both are human, you’re both going to make mistakes, you both have your inner worlds, and you’re both going through stuff and inner conflicts–it’s just life. If you could see that and really look into each other’s eyes and say, “How do we work together?”, that’s when magic happens but if you’re here or there, you’re really not in a good place.
GEORGINA HALABI
I agree the whole thing was about equilibrium and balance.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
You reach that by finding win-wins, and that really almost takes away that polarity thing that you’re talking about that we’re so used to using because it’s so ingrained.
GEORGINA HALABI
Absolutely. Very ingrained for me. I’m a Gemini so everything is about polar opposites with me.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
On the other hand, I think that God created the world with opposites for a reason because we need that. We need to be able to see things from different perspectives. My father once was giving a whole class to couples and he said, “Imagine there’s a ball in the middle, and there’s a man looking from here, and the woman looking from here. He’s telling her what’s on this side of the ball that she can’t see, and she’s telling him what’s on this side of the ball. Now they can both understand the whole circle, but if they just like, “’What do you mean?’ ‘It’s white.’ ‘No, it’s not. It’s green.’ ‘What? It’s white.’ ‘It’s green.’ ‘It’s white.’ ‘It’s green.’” Of course, it’s white and green but they can’t know that if they don’t communicate properly. There is something really beautiful about having those opposites, and being able to use it for you and not against you. That’s the game here–is really finding the tools that work because not everything is going to work for everybody.
GEORGINA HALABI
I think from that example, what’s really interesting is that they were both right. It just depends on my relevant perception. So everything is subjective. You can both be subjectively right in one argument–
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
We don’t want to face that when we’re in that lower consciousness level of, “No, I just need to be right” and blame, shame, victim that lower level of consciousness that we all have been in. We know exactly what it feels like. It’s so difficult to get out of that unless choose to move on, and if you can get to a place where you’re like, “Okay, higher consciousness. I can understand there’s more than me there’s something bigger. I can–I could try to learn try to undertstand– discover basically the discovery process of just–instead of getting to the point, sort of just being open to hearing what’s happening around me. Oh my gosh, that is the thing that’s going to change your life–is the ability to do that.
GEORGINA HALABI
One of the key things that I’m focusing on this year–for one of my own goals is to be open up to being wrong, to be open to being wrong. That to me is the two extremes of letting go completely and being in control. Having that talk where I feel safe enough to let go, be wrong and be open, but that’s had me look into my boundaries. That’s had me look into my own perception, my own judgments. It’s been–it’s Pandora’s Box.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Just being wrong–come on, first of all I’m never wrong so that’s not even an issue for me. Just kidding. It’s such a huge thing what you said about creating the safety to being wrong because a lot of times what we do is we feel so unsafe in our intimate relationships. Even just husband and wife, if you can’t be yourself, and you feel like you’re holding back your authenticity because it’s not safe for you to be yourself, then you’re really going to lose out, they’re going to lose out, and everybody loses out. Brené Brown has this whole book about authenticity, and how vulnerability is number one. Being able to open up first and saying, “I am willing to get hurt but this is more important for me–this relationship is more important than my protection and my armor.” Oh my gosh, that is just incredible. The weight that that holds–the ability to create space, and sometimes we have to create it ourselves because it’s not going to feel safe at first. We’re going to have to be the ones to put our–to be the first ones to take that leap and it’s scary but that’s why it’s worth it.
GEORGINA HALABI
You’re reading my mind Bat-Chen. Seriously, my mind just went to Brené Brown because talking about communications with our partners–so my husband, if I do anything where I feel monstrous, I feel really bad about myself so I’ve gone out and I’ve shouted at the children, I have not operated from my sage higher self. I’ve come in from sort of survival brain ra. I’m the naggy mom, and I will go in and out. The first thing I will do is I will tell my husband about how monstrous I am and I will reveal all my shame. Maybe part of me thinking, “Well, he’ll hate me for this,” but doing it anyway and wondering what would happen, what the repercussion was but Brené Brown really shown a light on how that’s actually a really healthy thing to do–that how we are stronger by being more vulnerable. So I think this has been something that I’ve subconsciously been doing all of these years–just by showing myself at my worst and being loved unconditionally.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
You just touched on something so big. The unconditional thing. The belief that we have–and I thinkit comes from the way that we’re taught in society, and just the culture whatever, that we need to do something in order to be worthy of love worthy of anything. It’s like, “I don’t even want to ask because I don’t deserve it,” and it’s like “No, you deserve love. You deserve everything.” It’s so huge what you just said. That belief that I’m going to tell you know exactly what happened, how ashamed I feel, how I know it’s the wrong thing to do, I did it anyway and I just feel so icky and help me out here. Then he can come from a place of, “Oh, you’re right. I see that you feel bad about it.” If you come and say, “Well you know what? I was right. They deserved it. I should have screamed at them because they were bad kids.” He doesn’t see that you’re feeling bad about it right away. What is he gonna do? Be like, “Yeah but maybe you should rethink about this. You were a little wrong.” I’m giving him the opportunity to just see that it’s safe for him to just let it go because I got the lesson. I learned my thing. I’ve processed it enough that he doesn’t have to also be hard on me.
GEORGINA HALABI
That’s the duality and the judgment. We’re often harder on ourselves than we are with other people. I think if we see ourselves through other people’s eyes, we would be so much more compassionate. But there you go—“This is right, this is wrong,” “You are good, you are bad,” “I like this. I alienate this,” “These emotions are good, these emotions should be suppressed,” “I am a good mom, I am an awful mom,” “I’m a good wife, I am awful.” All of these things ping-ponging around in our brain. Welcome to the human condition.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
It’s exactly what you said. It’s the judgment because all it is is you’re judging it. You are a mom. Period. That’s it. You just are. I am. Just stop at that. Take a deep breath and be. That is just so huge.
GEORGINA HALABI
I will if you will.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
It feels so good. You should all do this. Put your hand on your chest, where you say I am and take a deep breath. Just feel that because you don’t have to judge. You just are. You’re here. That’s good enough. You woke up this morning. Isn’t that amazing? Such a gift.
GEORGINA HALABI
I think one of the things that I keep reminding myself is I am doing my best and I am learning from everything. It’s pretty cool.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
To continue with the duality thing, one of the things that fascinate me so much is the dark and light, where if we only had light, it wouldn’t be bright. Somebody said, “What’s the point of holding a candle to the sun? The candle will only be shining and giving light when it’s in the dark.” Sometimes you need that darkness to find that little light, and then you can go from there. That brings us back to that complement of even though there are opposites, you need them both in order to really work together.
GEORGINA HALABI
I don’t think you can have one without the other. They just can’t exist because one creates the other. You can’t have dark without light. You can’t have without off up without down. They simply could not exist separately, which is what kind of wraps it all up into that hole. We have all of these polar opposites within us, but it is already a balance. We just kind of are all working towards that bit in between, which recognizes is one whole. It’s like two parts of the same bowl, same thing or two–that bowl that’s being looked at in two ways. It’s the same bowl. We are that same one.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
They’re dependent on each other, which is so beautiful because then when you can see that, then you can accept it and not fight it. I feel like one of the things that I waste the most energy on is fighting reality–is just being like, “It’s not supposed to be this way,” “It’s not supposed to be this way,” and when I just let go and say, “It is what it is. This is reality. This is what is right now,” and from there what do I do with it? I’m switching it to–I’m using it as fuel to move me forward, and not to get me stuck on obsessing over how this is not supposed to be.
GEORGINA HALABI
You’re saying about how exhausting it is to swim against the tide of reality.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Exhausting–that is the word, yes, because you’re using up all of your energy on that and you’re obsessing over something that you can’t change, you can’t control, and you can’t do anything about. You just need to let it be, and when you let it be then suddenly you could see, “What can I learn from this? What can I do with this? Let’s move on. Let’s move forward.” It’s such a huge thing.
GEORGINA HALABI
The key word being in there is “I.” What can I learn from this? What can I do about this? Because expecting the world to change ain’t going to happen. When we change ourselves, the world changes because everything is how we perceive it. Try waking up on the wrong side of the bed, for example.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yes, and I think that’s one of the things that I love about the women I work with–is they’re not expecting to change and, “Oh, that’s it. Magically, my life is perfect.” “I want to know what to do when I wake up on the wrong side of the bed. I want to know how to catch myself before I’m triggered and go on to this whole you know cycle of two days not talking to my husband. I want to know what to do in order to prevent myself from being reactive,” and those are amazing things because it shows that they’re able to already get on that level of understanding–that they just need to take care of their selves. They’re not always going to be at their highest, and not their best. “What do I do when I’m not at my best? How do I pinpoint it, realize right away, do something about it, and prepare for it?” So powerful.
GEORGINA HALABI
I commend all of the women who are on that journey. It’s not just for you but for everyone around you.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
For sure. That’s why I’m like loving this so much–is I just get to watch how amazing they are and how the potential that they didn’t believe they had within them–they finally were willing to admit that maybe it’s possible and then they committed to it. Suddenly it is possible, and suddenly it’s actually their reality. It’s mind-blowing. It just feels so good.
GEORGINA HALABI
It’s incredibly gratifying. I also work with a lot of clients to stop them being triggered when they’re in their survival mode. Everything is fear-based, reactive, and responsive to sort of stepping into a much more resourceful creative space in the moment, and just being aware of everything as it arises, not getting engaged, and not stepping into all the narrative about, “Well he said or she said,” or “I am.” Just stepping away and noticing it happen, then going, “Okay.” It’s really powerful stuff.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yes totally. You wanted to talk about male female a little bit. I remember when we were talking last time. What did you want to ask?
GEORGINA HALABI
So I was on a flight from L.A. to Boston one time with this rabbi who was teaching at Harvard on female power and the color. I didn’t get to hear–I mean our conversation ranged on many, many different things but I never got to hear more about that. It stuck in my mind 15 years later and I’m like, “I wish I’d asked.” I wish I’d found out so anything that you can add on that, I’d be really, really interested.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yes, flight convos are the best. You’re stuck in a flight together with people who–and that’s exactly that duality of you could be so different, be stuck on a flight, and just be human about it and have a conversation that leads to such awesome things.
GEORGINA HALABI
If I’m going to be brutally honest, I just got off a 16 hour flight from Singapore. I was sitting next to him. I had a Bloody Mary in front of me, he was taking a sleeping pill. He goes, “Do you want one?”, I said, “Sure”–I’ve got to trust a rabbi. I took it, and he said, “You know, maybe you shouldn’t be drinking that”–you know, with Bloody Mary. Five minutes later, so it seemed, I wake up at the other end, and I’ve got drool sticking up to my chin. I’m like, “Oh, I wish I’d had that conversation,” but I really needed that sleep. But yes, flight conversations are the best. I wish you were awake for more of it.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I love flights. So male and female is really fascinating because the male is very practical and linear, and also their cycles are 24 hours. That’s why the schedules for businesses are so the same every day. You have these hours to this, hours and–those are the hours that they’re the most productive. They know that these are the hours they’re going to be working. Not necessarily for women. We’re cyclical and 28 day cycle–you have days where you’re in the mood to work, days where you’re not in the mood to work, and days where you need to rest. We need to take those into consideration. One of the people I love to listen to is Kate Northrup because she has a whole book, Do Less: A Revolutionary Approach to Time and Energy Management for Ambitious Women, about how if you can get in touch with your cycle, the places in your month when you’re super productive, and then times in your month when you really need to take it easy, you’re going to get a lot more done by doing less because you’re not fighting your body. I love that, but that’s total side note. Men are very practical, very linear, and very predictable and they’re always looking for what do we need to do, how do we get there–very brain logical, and females are completely different. I don’t have to tell you–we are intuitive. We are completely not linear. We can go like this to that same point but we get so much out of it because we get the whole journey, and we get the whole discovery period. That is our superpower–is being able to really take it as it comes and also our goal isn’t as much, “What do I need to do to get there?”, it’s more like, “How will this happen?”, and allowing it to be. That’s one of those things that’s really amazing. It’s like you sort of are letting go of the control and seeing what will be but you’re very focused–this is where we’re going and you’re working towards it but not from a place of “I need to make this work” and “I need to get to the result” but more in a flow. When you’re really in touch with yourself is one of the most amazing things. It’s like a real superpower. You know who talks about this? There’s a woman, Gina DeVee, she just started–oh she’s amazing. She has a book called The Audacity to Be Queen, and she talks about just being willing to own your female powers and not push yourself to be like a man. Something that we’ve been doing for a long time in collective womanism is if you want to succeed, you need to be like them. You need to dress like them, you need to push like them, you need to get to their level, and break those feelings like that. We’re trying so hard to be something else that isn’t us that we’re losing our own intuition. We’re losing our own inner voice. We’re losing our own authenticity and we’re losing our superpowers, which are the intuition and the ability to receive because when you look at it in a fit, physical way, you know the man is the giver and the woman is the receiver. Then the woman can develop what she receives into the baby. So we have that also in all the other aspects. Men are very give, provide, and protect. That’s their goal in life. That’s also why, by the way, and in marriage the way that he measures his success is by how happy she is because it has nothing to do with how much money, he’s making how many buildings, he owns how much I don’t know what. All of his outer success isn’t as important as his wife’s level of happiness, and so if he comes home and she says, “You’re not enough,” then he’s not enough no matter how much he owns, and he will feel like a failure in his own eyes because he was not able to provide and protect. If he comes home and has nothing, he’s a total loser but he comes home and she says, “I am so glad that you’re my husband. I couldn’t have asked for anybody better. You are just such a provider. You go out, you bring home whatever you can,” She really is able to be in that place of being happy with what she has. Also just being, finding her own happiness, and taking responsibility so that she’s not dependent on him–she’s creating that fill for him to feel good about himself. So he is measuring his success according to her happiness. It’s one of those really amazing things. Don’t take this wrong. If you’re not happy, don’t be like, “It’s your fault I’m not happy.” It’s your responsibility to be happy but just–your superpower then is to give him credit and that’s just easy. You could say, “Thank you for supporting me so I can do my purpose. Thank you for being so supportive thank you for being so”– and he’s like, “I did nothing.” I sometimes tell my husband–I’m like, “I can only do what I do because of you. Thank you so much,” and he’s like, “I don’t know what I did but okay.” I’m like, “What do you mean what you did? While I was on the live, you take care of the kids,” “You made supper tonight,” or I don’t know what. I come up with things because I want to give him–that’s my gift to him–is my ability to receive his support and his love.
GEORGINA HALABI
I would say that that goes both ways as well because we all have a fundamental need to be acknowledged as being enough. It’s our greatest fear, I think all of us deep and wide, we’re not enough and there’s–doesn’t matter if you’re male or female. So taking the time to acknowledge your partner and to be acknowledged is fundamental but I’m curious Bat-Chen, with the whole male and female, are they supposed–are you meant to have both in you or as a female do you just embody the female energy and the male just embodies the male?
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
No, I think that we both have both but we have the stronger ones within us. I think that as a rule, you’re very–you’re naturally one or the other. I think even though you have both, you’ll have the ability to tap into your logical brain and think clearly, and be very goal-oriented. The question is, “Are you going against your nature or with your nature”? Because at a certain point you’re going to start wearing off like you’re going to start running out of steam if this isn’t your nature.
GEORGINA HALABI
That’s interesting because if I look internally, that’s part of my duality. I definitely have male aspects to me needing to prove being successful, always winning, highly competitive, structured, process methodical, and then the other half, which is just happy, stick me on a beach somewhere, happily pregnant, and very sort of in touch. I would say the male side has come out of the survival instinct basement and part of my female is trusting to receive. There’s that word trust again.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yeah, and we all have that fear will push us to do things that we’re not aligned with. We are not in with our integrity, and so we’re capable of doing them. The question is, “How sustainable is it”? Because if it’s not what you’re meant for, if it’s not what you’re here for, so you’re going to have a much harder time doing that–leaning into that purpose for a long period of time–you’ll be able to do it for a burst of time and then you’re gonna have that cyclical thing where it’s like, “Okay, now I need to take a break. Okay, now I’m going back to it,” so that’s why when women are running a business, they have to be really in touch with that cyclical thing of, “Right now, I’m launching. I’m really excited. I’m putting all my energy in there. I’m 100%. Go, go, go,” but I know it’s going to end, I know I’m going to take a break, and I know I’m going to have that low where I just do my thing, go with the flow, and have my rhythm. Then I’m going to have that up again so when I know it’s coming. I’m not upset, disappointed, frustrated, or trying to reverse engineer how I’m going to make sure that I stay consistent because it’s not my nature. It’s not how I’m supposed to be. I think that is really amazing also. I think men have the ability to be intuitive and to get to those places also, but to them it’s going to be also not their go-to. We all have everything within us. I think that’s one of those duality things like you’re saying. I have those inner conflicts all the time where I want this, but I want that, I want to—so we’re a whole world within ourselves. It’s so fascinating. Oh, that’s so fun. Such a fun conversation.
GEORGINA HALABI
“We are a whole world within ourselves.” I love that.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
We are a whole world, and you know, we have a saying in in Hebrew that when you save a person, it’s like saving a whole world. That’s why you’re allowed to do anything. You know you’re allowed to go against Sabbath, for example, in order to save a life because the life is more important and you’re not going to say, “Oh, I’m sorry I can’t drive today so I’m not going to drive the ambulance.” You’re not allowed to do that. You have to go drive the ambulance, that person–bring them to the hospital. You have a responsibility for that life. Why? They say because every life is like the whole world. One person is the whole world, and it’s just so beautiful. I remember my mother always saying, “Oh, I have four kids,” and people with more kids would look at her and be like, “Oh.” She’s like, “Excuse me. That’s four worlds.” That’s humongous. I think that it taught us as kids. It really left an impression on me that it’s not that it’s about numbers. It’s about each person counts, and by the way, that’s one of the things that I’m trying to get in touch with now. I’m sort of becoming more present with it. I’m launching a retreat and it’s a free retreat–you’re coming, I know. I’m very excited. It’s going to be a seven day retreat and I’m working really hard to make it absolutely phenomenal. It’s going to be one-hour a day for seven days, and I’m going to be really teaching about marriage and business, and how to put them together, how to use your marriage to fuel your business, how to get your the support that you need, and the help that you crave so that you can really fly and move forward in your business. We’re going to be talking a lot about that in the beginning. The first day I launched it, I opened up the doors to register I was so excited, you know? It’s this free retreat, you start getting people in, and it’s like, “Oh look, today we got 12 people,” and the next day it’s like, “Oh look, today we got 10 people.” You get all excited about the numbers and when I started connecting to them one by one, I welcome them when they join the Facebook group, and I’m really happy to meet them and get to know them because that’s the whole point–is I love people so I really am doing this to change their–to create peace in their home, and so I want to get to know as much as I can about their issues so that I can address it. I have these back-and-forth conversations, and after the first week of stressing over the numbers, I was like, “Forget it. I’m not checking numbers anymore.” I’m just excited to meet people I’m excited to see their needs, and to hear more about what they’re looking for because that’s what I’m here for. I’m here to serve, and so I totally changed my entire mind about how I was doing it, and it made me so much happier. I went from being all “Is like this amount enough? Do I need more numbers?” to “Do I care about the numbers? I’m not checking. I’m not checking. I don’t even know. I have no idea how many there are but I’m so excited about each one that joins.” I get a ding about somebody wants to join the Facebook group, I welcome them, I friend them, and I want to hear more about them. It feels so good. It fills me up. Ah, that is totally off topic but totally on topic because I like bringing my own life as examples. I think that’s one of my superpowers–is just being really real. So that’s what I’m going through now, and I’m really excited so you guys go and check out connectedforreal.com/retreat. It’s happening in two weeks so you better sign up. Also, I’m doing these really cool special hot topic bonuses for the people who sign up early. We did parenting and marriage last week, and this week we’re actually–oh yeah, parenting and marriage was a really good one because we addressed the most important mindset shift on that video.
GEORGINA HALABI
Are there any spoilers you’re allowed to tell us?
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Spoilers, I think, that you know–children are geniuses. You don’t have to fake it, you don’t have to pretend that you’re on the same wavelength with your husband when you’re not. If you don’t like candy and he does. You fight with him all day that he’s going against your will and, how could you give them candy behind my back. It’s like they know. They know what’s going on so just–let’s respect each other. I don’t like candy. He likes candy. Yes, children are geniuses. If we can respect each other and say, “Please don’t eat the candy around me,” or, “Please just give them candy when it’s specific times that–let’s communicate about this so that it doesn’t become between me and you,” and it’s just because you know the rule of the house sort of thing. Sometimes my husband will get really annoyed when we he comes home and the house is a mess, so I’ll tell the kids, “I honestly probably don’t care as much about having toys on the floor.” I like clean but it’s kids, you know, they’re having a full day in the house with the corona thing and the pandemic, and they haven’t gone to school in forever. They’re taking out toys all the time and so it doesn’t bother me as much, but I tell them before my husband comes home, “Let’s clean up. Fifteen minutes–let’s just pick things up so that we can welcome him,” so do they think I’m faking it? No, I’m telling them straight out we’re doing it for him, and that’s such a respectful thing. I’m teaching them that sometimes you do something for someone else when it doesn’t matter to you.
GEORGINA HALABI
One family rule in our house up on the fridge and it’s the root of absolutely everything, and that’s be considerate.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yeah and I mean another spoiler is that you want to teach your kids how to be adults and not how to be kids because education is not, “Let me teach you how to be a good kid,” it’s, “Let me teach you how to be a good adult.” That means let me teach you that life doesn’t actually stop being life the second you grow up. One of the things that kids think is like, “Oh yeah, one day I’m gonna get out of here and I’m not gonna have to do anything I don’t want to do.” Uh-huh, right. You see how that works for you because it’s not true life. It’s going to be challenging. Life is going to be full of surprises, and things that are going to come up and you’re going to have to deal with them. So let me teach you how–how to deal with things you don’t like to do, how to to deal with things that you don’t expect, how to deal with things that you don’t like, how to deal with reality, and that’s what that’s our job as parents.
GEORGINA HALABI
Well, there’s the duality in that as well because the kids help us become children again and there are more benefits from that. To laugh more freely, to get on the floor and to be mindful with toys, and to just lose ourselves in the moment that it goes both ways. Having said that, I would say there’s an age limit because you know it’s not until they’re about 12 years old that they start to be able to discern. At the same time, we can prepare them but there are boundaries. They’re safety and security boundaries. It is about them being kids but giving them the security to be responsible and to make their own mistakes
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Sometimes it’s not about our expectation of them but just ourselves modeling something. So I’m modeling that this is important to me even though it’s not important to me because it’s important to him–pick that up even a very young age. They can understand that, “Oh okay, you know there’s peace here.” There is certainly—
GEORGINA HALABI
What you say, they do. What they see, you do.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Oh yeah, that’s number one. I think my kids are the thing that keeps me the best. I will put down my phone because they remind me to, but I think if they weren’t around, I would be a total zombie. It’s one of my biggest problems–is my phone because when they were in school, l it was much easier. During the time that they weren’t in school, I was working and taking care of messages and whatever it was. When they come home, I would put the phone to charge, and I would just give them time and serve them food. I was very present but now there is no separation. It’s all this mush. They’re everywhere all the time and they’re not going to sleep on time. It’s just, “Boom,” that new situation created–first of all, that my kids think that I work all day because they never saw me working. To them I worked maybe one hour a day. Their whole chunk of the morning didn’t exist. It’s almost that the kid that like falls asleep and says, “I go to sleep and nothing happens until I wake up. That’s what they believe because that’s their life. Their life is–my daughter says, “You work so much all the time. You’re not with us,” and it’s like, “Yeah, I’m actually doing my job.” I’m doing exactly what I was doing before, maybe even less but now you see it so now it’s a little bit more complicated. They want me to take them to the park during work hours so I have meetings at the park with my Zoom. We do what we can. We’re having a good time with it but it’s definitely a new challenge that we’re enjoying.
GEORGINA HALABI
Here’s something that I’ve always struggled with–is this idea of boundaries. In my mind, I’m sort of earth mom. I’ve got this idea of my kids have been a part of me for nine months and then they leave, somehow my boundaries don’t exist so much. We exist almost by osmosis and for me to want to carve out me-time is almost selfish.I know that that’s rubbish. I can look at that and go, “What nonsense,” slap outside my head, go for a walk take some time out, otherwise you’re going to be a psycho. Off you go but that feeling inside of just wanting to be there and the tendency to end up smothering instead of mothering is something that I have to constantly remind myself. I’m not being selfish. I’ve had to do a lot of work on my own limiting beliefs in that, and setting up the boundaries, so now my kids know they will try. They’ll probably walk down the stairs and try to have this conversation with me while I’m in the middle of a call, but now they know, because I’ve set boundaries and I put consequences in. Then I will go and spend the time with them intentionally, put my attention on them. There’s a duality between interdependent and separate. I kind of think the whole thing is a bit of a myth anyway. We’re all this whole idea of being separate. Separate-self is part of the problem but it’s essential.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yeah, I think that’s one of the things that women have such a hard time with–receiving because like we said before, that is our superpowers–to receive but we are not trained to receive because everybody just tells you give, give, give. How do you come to peace with receiving when it feels so foreign? We’re not used to it, and the answer is because receiving is giving. We were talking about duality. If there is nobody to give to–so you can be rich and there’s no charities around, you have nobody to give to. It feels so useless. What is the point of having all this money? What is the point of having all this stuff if you don’t have that receiver? Then there is no giver. By receiving, you’re actually giving the giver the ability to give, and that’s the biggest giving. That’s a total mindset switch because now instead of being, “Oh, I’m the receiver and poor me. I don’t know. He’s probably feeling so low about me.” No, I am usually the higher one. The person who receiving has this job of creating a pedestal for the other person really holding them up. That’s an amazing thing. In my intimacy masterclass, we go into that a lot because it has so much to do with it–the ability to receive is the ability to give.
GEORGINA HALABI
When you say that–my grandmother had a quote about pedestals and it just popped into my head, “You put someone on a pedestal, and you discover their feet are made of clay.” We’re all exactly the same. We’ve got clay feet. That’s funny to me. It’s about that equality–giving-receiving. The interesting thing is I work a lot on receiving because often with coaching the clients that you have are you and everything that you’ve gone through. You are your ideal client. I am my ideal client so if receiving comes up in my coaching session, which it so frequently does, I know that there’s a finger pointing in at me going, “Okay, I need to do some work receiving.” So the way that I started is go and write something, go and say nice things, do something that will attract a lot of compliments back at you, and then just do this mantra, just this affirmation. Somebody gives you a compliment, somebody offers you something, somebody does something for you, don’t say, “Oh yes, this old thing?”, or “Oh, no,” but just say, “Thank you,” and just that has opened up so much for people. It’s the first step to starting every time they block receiving.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
You know who’s really into that is Laura Doyle. She wrote a book called The Empowered Wife, and it’s a very good book, by the way, if you guys want to transform your marriage. She went from almost getting divorced to completely being in a different place with her marriage. Now she teaches other women how to coach. I don’t know her personally, but I read her book. It was funny somebody came and said, “Everything you teach lines up with this woman you have to read her book,” so I was like, “Okay.” I read her book, and lo and behold, yes, everything I teach is in there. It’s funny, you know. All the lines–the only things that are missing there for me are that she doesn’t have kids, so I talk a lot about kids because I have six. Also, she doesn’t bring God into it at all so that’s something that was missing for me but for most people, I think that that’s a phenomenal book. If you wanted to go and read one book, go read that book The Empowered Wife by Laura Doyle. She talks a lot about the power of just saying “thank you.” When you reject the compliment, you are rejecting the person. We don’t realize that you’re doing it. Only they feel it. So your husband brings you flowers or he brings you a gift, and you’re like, “Ugh this old thing,” or, “This thing is ugly.” He’ll even say, “Oh, you’re so beautiful,” and you’re like, “Oh, no way. I gained so much weight,” and blah blah blah–you start complaining and he feels like, “Oh, you know, no point. There’s no point of giving you anything. It’s not even worth it.” So you’re training him to stop, which is pretty much us getting in our own way because then what? Then you go complaining that your husband never gives you anything. He tried for the first five years, then you trained him not to, and he gave up. What do you think? He’s gonna try on forever? He’s a good learner. He’s smart. He’s picking up what you want but you don’t want, which is why it’s so easy to bring it back. You can retrain by changing what your your reactions–you can so easily change it all around. People think it’s going to take years and years, and then suddenly you turn around and it’s a couple of months later. Oh my gosh, my entire relationship has changed because my relationship with myself changed. My ability to receive changed, my ability to take responsibility for my own happiness and not to wait for other people, and not my ability to be de-dependent myself– is that a word? Because we’re so like, “He doesn’t make me happy.” Well, yeah?
GEORGINA HALABI
Take responsibility.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
To say yes. That’s how it works, and you’re waiting for him to fill you up. It’s never gonna work because you’re not–it’s a bottomless pit when we wait for other people to fill us. It has to start with us and that’s the secret of everything, by the way.
GEORGINA HALABI
I’ve been doing this really interesting course and it’s called SRI. It’s body work that you use to integrate your polarities. One of the stages within it is all about creating unity and acceptance of our various polarities. You start with breathing into the different parts of your body and naming the polarity. Sometimes I receive, sometimes I give, sometimes I’m angry, sometimes I’m loving, sometimes I’m patient sometimes I’m not patient some and then you basically name all those bits that you dislike about yourself that you’ve been shaming and repressing. If somebody offers you something, you can’t accept it because there’s that block within you and then at the end what you do is you just visualize. Imagine it’s like you’re sending your breath and your energy from one to the other, and then back up again. Imagine it’s like paint. You’ve got red up here and yellow down there, and you’re sending the red down to the yellow, and the yellow up to the red. You end up with this orange. Creating this community of these bits that you like or dislike that you judge, and just creating one whole thing which is really nice. That’s how I internalize that.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
That’s really cool I think it’s just so it’s so fascinating for me because every time I come up with another polarity and another duality–is like the two sides of the brain. One of my friends who works with the kids with autism, she really makes them open up and close up–just connect that that out-in, in-out thing. There’s so much that you can do to really create that oneness within you. It’s just amazing. I’m a religious jew and I bring God into everything. I feel like that is that oneness. God is one and He created this world with all those polarities to teach us how to reunite, how to create that within ourselves, and then to find that inner peace that then will bring the outer peace. It’s just all awesome. It’s just so cool. It’s so cool.
GEORGINA HALABI
I think all of us are striving for wholeness. We’re striving to feel whole again. Yes, not judged–feel loved, feel integrated, feel complete.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
That’s the thing. The wholeness is just–that’s one of the things about perfectionism. Perfectionism is that lie or the illusion of, “Oh perfect is whole,” but it’s not actually. Wholeness is taking that perfect and the imperfect, and realizing that they’re really one and that they work together. That’s what’s perfect. Brené Brown has that book The Gift of Imperfection, and she talks about wholehearted people–and when I read that book, I made a video about it. It’s a very cute, funny video you could look on my YouTube channel. It’s about–so I was thinking wholehearted whole wheat. What is whole wheat all about? I started thinking about how in the beginning there was–everybody was eating whole wheat and then the rich people are like, “Wait there’s the outer shell that’s really just sort of garbage, and the inner shell is the perfect part so let’s separate and just take the perfect.” They were able to get the perfect piece, the perfect white flower, to make the perfect white bread. All the rich people had the perfect bread. Everybody else was eating garbage, and then of course, with time, we’re getting to the point where everybody’s eating white flour and white bread. Everybody is eating perfect food. Then what happens? Everybody goes stop to a halt. It’s not perfect. It’s not digestible. It’s having a terrible effect on all of us. What’s going on? If this was the perfect bread, why isn’t it perfect? The answer is because you’re missing the most important part. The imperfection, which is there to help you digest. So then, when you take that to life, you’re like, “If I just perfect myself and try to release all of that imperfect to the point where I no longer have any shells and anything, I am this ‘perfect person’.” Then am I really going to be able to digest life if I had no challenges? If I had no darkness? If I had no ups and downs? If it was just all perfect? You wouldn’t. You wouldn’t be able to digest that you wouldn’t have the ability to really be a healthy person.
GEORGINA HALABI
I like that. You couldn’t grow just on the inside. You need that husk just to survive.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Georgina, tell us where people can find you, who you help–tell the people
GEORGINA HALABI
I mainly help professionals, a lot of executives but also people who are teachers. One of my clients owns a gym, and these are all high achievers who are really, really self-aware very, very smart but they have a big inner critic that tends to hobble them. A lot of the work that I do is really about stopping that judgment. It’s about creating that awareness and allowing them to step back. It’s also about understanding that that their triggers is–all are also an opportunity to understand what programs they’re running in the background, and helping them align. A lot of the work that I do is about internal alignment because we often have internal agendas, push-pull, “I want this but secretly I want that,” things that are conscious and subconscious. So a lot of the work that I do is around duality to create balance. I’m really all about equilibrium so that you can have ongoing success while being present, while being open-hearted, while using all the faculties of your brain. I’m all about the right and the left hemisphere working together. I tend to combine a lot of–Here goes my Gemini side–a lot of neuroscience and left brain stuff with the right brain visualization, NLP, more spiritual aspects. I combine both as needed for my clients and you can find me on my website. it’s really easy if you have a look at my name. I often invite people to reach out if you’re curious if you think I can help you. Just contact me through my website. There’s a little button there. You could book half an hour to chat with me or if you’re willing to explore further and have a coaching session with me, book in a 90-minute chat. I’m not going to tell you about the wonders of coaching. It’s best just experienced so if you fancy it, book in a 90-minute session with me. I’m happy to help.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Georginahalabi.com. Go and do it because it’s totally worth it. If you guys are married and in business, you should definitely check out the retreat http://connectedforreal.com/retreat. It’s such a pleasure. I’m so happy we got to meet. I’m so happy we got to discuss this, and then we were like, “We have to take this live. There is no way we could just keep this between us.” Thank you so much. We will see you next week.
GEORGINA HALABI
Bye everyone.
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.