In This Episode

Rivka Malka shares stories and paradigms on healing yourself. Rebbetzin Bat-Chen ties this together by focusing on the wife as the core of marriage, and that it is through knowing what you want that your marriage can breakthrough to a new level. When we think that we cannot do something, it’s important to remember that G-d sends His guidance and gives you the responsibility to give to His world in whatever way you can.

Highlights

01:00 Rivka Malka runs a coaching school for women that leads them on a self-development journey, and/or towards their coaching certification.

01:28 During times of Egypt where men and women were in slavery, women led the redemption, just as they are doing now, in order for them to remember their uniqueness and gifts given by G-d.

06:07 Before starting her business, Rebbetzin Bat-Chen felt like there was no marriage advice that aligned with her needs. By working on herself, and communicating with her husband that their marriage was top priority, came her rising and growth.

09:22 Everyone has masculine and feminine energy. In Kabbalah, it is known as Rachel and Leah. Rivka Malka uses this empowering paradigm to show how we complement our husbands, but that what we look for in our husbands is actually also within ourselves.

15:52 The CALM Method of Rebbetzin Bat-Chen is discussed in the Marriage Breakthrough Retreat, which you can still join!

23:30 Saying, “I accept” is the beginning of healing.

29:29 One of the things that Rebbetzin Bat-Chen has been doing is to just pause in order to create space for herself. She talks about its importance and how she does it.

31:09 A lot of women will say, “My plate is so full. I can’t take on more. I can’t grow my business because it’s just going to create more work and more—” but we are always capable of doing more. The Marriage Mastermind (now called Flow Mastermind) of Rebbetzin Bat-Chen helps women break through in their marriage without sacrificing business, and vice versa.

32:02 In her journey of starting her business, she realized that G-d does not need her to be out of balance. She can tap into G-d power and G-d capacity by letting Him be the creator and herself be the receiver.

42:36 Rebbetzin Bat-Chen created Connected for Real by being specific about what she wanted, and G-d sent His guidance for her to help married in business. We can be ashamed or feel unworthy of having a big dream but Hashem gave us an opportunity and responsibility to give to His world in whatever way we can. 

Links

Rivka Malka: Website

5 Surprising Ways to Improve Your Marriage
Marriage Breakthrough Retreat

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For more information about Connected for Real, visit the website!

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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 to the Connected for Real Podcast. I’m Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman, a G-d-centered marriage coach for women in business, and today we have Rivka Malka Perlman. Wahoo! This is a very exciting moment in my life. Rivka Malka, tell everyone why you’re so awesome, why I’m so excited to have you here, and what you do.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

You’re excited to have me here because I’m excited to be on here. So, it’s kind of like boomerang—it’s coming back at you and it’s great to be here. I’m Rivka Malka coming to you from Baltimore. My heart is in Jerusalem. I run a coaching school for women that leads them on a self-development journey, and/or towards their coaching certification, and it’s pretty exciting.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

Wow. It is very exciting.

Today’s topic is Heal Yourself, Heal Your Marriage because really this is what it’s all about. The wife is the core of the marriage and this is why I have my show to help you get to a place where you can single-handedly improve your marriage without needing to drag your husband along and make him sit at some meeting he does not want to be in. So, let’s talk more about the healing part because that’s what your expertise is.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

Sure. It would be my pleasure and I’m gonna start with this story, okay? This story is one that is very, very well-known but we’re gonna unpack the story and see it through a healing lens and through a marriage lens, and I don’t know if this is gonna sit with you like it sits with me, Bat-Chen, but for me, I’m like, “Thank you G-d for this story,” because it for me, it has everything in it okay.

It was back in the times of Egypt and we were in slavery, and our mothers had been in slavery and their mothers before them and their mothers before them, and the way that Paroh, pharaoh, organized it was that he separated the men and the women, and he did that to debilitate their spirits and also so that they couldn’t be connected to one another, they wouldn’t have children—it would just be awful. So, there were the women. They were on their own, surrounded by other women, not by men, and in that space, something happened towards redemption and that is that they began to look at themselves in their copper mirrors.

What does that mean they looked at themselves in their copper mirrors? When you’re in slavery, you don’t care about how you look and it’s not like you had your mother caring about how she looked. Beauty is just not a thing. So what it means to me anyway is that they remembered their femininity. They actually looked in the mirror, and this doesn’t only mean on a physical level. It definitely does mean on a physical level to remember their femininity, their self-care, that they’re not just workers, they’re women but also that they remembered their own internal beauty. G-d gave them a gift. “Remember who you are. You’re not just workers and in slavery. There’s someone really special inside of there,” and how do we know that this is so impactful? Because what did the women do next? They left the women’s circle and they went to their husbands in the field, they held up that mirror and they flirted with their husbands, they teased them, and they said, “I’m more beautiful than you. That’s what the [hebrew] tells us,” and from there, they found new connection and intimacy with their husband and from there came children, and these holy, holy mirrors were used later in the Mishkan, in the tabernacle.

So this is like a paradigm story for healing right now, and we’ll go back and forth on this but I just—if it could take another minute to just lay it out as I see it.

So, women right now are holding the heartbeat of the world. We say that [Hebrew] took us out of the garden and she’s going to lead us back in the garden. So, we’re kind of this driving force and not only that, but when it comes to man and woman, women represent the subconscious, men represent the conscious. So, this subconscious healing needs to happen in order for it to come to the surface to the men and to the whole system. So how does it happen? It happens amongst women, where the women look in the copper mirrors—and what is a mirror? It’s a reflection and women are there to help one another process and reflect back their feelings to help one another reflect back their awesomeness and their strengths and their beauty, and from this experience of being with women, whether it be on your awesome podcast or in a class or in a coaching school, from this experience of finding out about our own beauty, we can then go to the space of our husbands and show our beauty to them. There’s like a tease in it because you see, it’s not just like, “I’m wearing a gorgeous dress. Now you’ll be more in love with me.” It’s so much deeper than that. When a man is with a woman who finds herself beautiful, he actually finds his own manhood. He rises from that keep, that pile, that Paroh put him in out in the fields, where he’s completely emasculated doing this fieldwork, which was Paroh’s idea in the first place, and he rises to his manner because he’s got a woman who feels great about herself, who’s found her own beauty within her, that helps him find his own beauty.

So, that’s the paradigm that I live in a lot and all of the shades and the colors within that.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

I love this because it’s so aligned with everything that I teach, and I love, love, love that you’re talking about the time of redemption and how women are the face and the force behind it because that’s what we are seeing right now. A lot of what I talk about is that when I was going through my success and my husband’s a big Rabbi, sitting and learning and answering questions, that world is very different than the world I was in, where people wanted to know my opinion about a certain color and what should we buy and how much should we order and I was a big graphic designer designing all these things with packaging. [sighs] I felt like there was no advice that was aligning to my needs because the marriage advice that we were hearing a lot in those days—you know, whatever. It’s still around but it’s very much like husbands on top, wives on [the] bottom, let’s get the wife to get to the top. So, we’re very into empowering the wife and giving her the skills to be able to be an equal, but what happens when the wife’s on top, and the more you empower her the more the gap ends up growing? So, we have all these amazing empowered women who are growing out of their marriage because the tools are not aligning to the needs of these women, and that’s where I realized that first, I had to heal my own my own situation and thank G-d I’m really really grateful that I had the awareness and my husband’s amazing. We were very, very much in communication about how this is top priority and we have to make this work and I’m not willing to let my business take an effect on my marriage, and then from that, came all of what you’re saying, and I think that it’s absolutely amazing the amount of women who are now rising to the top and bringing that light and guiding that redemption. It’s absolutely magnificent.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

Thank you so much for bringing that up, Bat-Chen. You’re like [a] bullseye in the center of one of like the hot topics—a woman finding her strength and, so to speak, outgrowing her marriage. I’d love to talk about that more.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

Go ahead. That’s what we talk about here all the time.

Every angle to that is helpful because it’s so important to know and it’s important for me to give over to all the listeners that they don’t have to choose between their own power and their own purpose in order to have a good marriage. One of the things that I was feeling stuck in at that time was, “If I get more successful, then I’m going to lose my marriage, so I won’t go there,” and so I was really— it’s like holding—you know, you have to give birth but you’re holding it in. It hurts more than just letting it out. It’s like, “Stop already.” You have to do this this is what you’re called to do. Let’s find a way to have both and that’s what I’m all about, so go ahead and give us your take on this because I’d love to hear.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

Oh, absolutely. I can’t stop smiling. This is so rich. It’s so critical.

So, okay. May I offer you another paradigm?

All right, so everyone is comprised of masculine and feminine. We each have a certain amount of masculine, a certain amount of feminine, and not only that but our neshamas, our souls, are brought into this world primarily with a more masculine energy or a more feminine energy, and in kabbalah, we refer to these energies as Rachel and Leah. So your Rachel is going to be what we call a supportive energy. She’s supportive. She’s appropriate. She’s not ego-based. She’s service-based. She’s looking at the needs of others constantly, and she’s there very and truly in support of her husband, and she is also very, very vulnerable. She can get stepped on. She can lose her voice she cannot have a voice, to begin with. She cannot know how to set her boundaries, but the spirit of Rachel that lives within every man and every woman is this spirit of support. “I’m here to empower you.” Then we also have the spirit of Leah, and Leah is the older sister. Leah, whereas Rachel is the supporter, Leah is the leader. She’s the creator. So this creative energy actually comes with it a focus on self. What can I do? What can I bring to the world? How can I serve Hashem? She needs the Rachel support, and her energy, her vitality, her creativity is actually something that Rachel needs.

So, when we get married, we are naturally drawn towards somebody who has that oppositeness neshama of us. If we’re coming in with this Leah-ness, then our intended most likely has that Rachel-ness. Now, I didn’t find that piece from a source. So, I just want to tell you there’s so much kabbalah and sources about Rachel and Leah and the parts about neshama, but that just seems to me, very basic that you’re marrying your—I believe it’s the truth, okay? Be that as it may, even your Rachel spouse, if you’re married to a soft gentleman, who’s not gonna go be an entrepreneur, who’s more like in the kindness and consideration and thoughtfulness, even the Rachel man has a Leah aspect to him, and the whole idea of him marrying you is so you should benefit from his Rachel and he should benefit from your Leah, both in your leadership and in helping him to find his Leah. He needs that, and the same thing is with you. You, for example, you’re talking about a very Leah woman, a woman who’s like a creator, etc. What is this marriage about? For her to have this wonderful supportive husband, but also for her to find the supportive one within her, the one that can step back and be humble and empower and relax and help her man find his man, and in that she finds her own womanhood because there’s something so beautiful about just—the depth of a woman is to receive. So, she’s got to soften the parts of herself that know it all and I don’t say that in any, not nice way—I’m saying she really knows a lot. She can quiet that knowing and make way for her husband’s more sensitive knowing.

So, this is the construct and because it’s always a little bit dicey to talk kabbalah in plain terms because we want to be speaking the truth, I simply call these energies the creator and the maintainer. So, what you’re talking about is a woman finds her creative energy and it can just squash her husband or squash the system because is she being a support to him now? And she may even lose respect for him because she’s so full of her own glory. So, I believe, Bat-Chen, that it is natural, that there are periods of transition when we’re finding these energies, that there will be periods of disconnect. Why? Because if I’m dancing with you, and a husband and wife are always cosmically holding hands—one dance changes, the other dance changes. That’s what you said at the beginning. The woman can change the dance because they’re attached like Siamese twins. So, when she finds her creator self, suddenly she’s dancing much faster. I mean, she’s doing hip hop and he’s doing ballet. There’s going to be a disconnect. It’s going to be really, really hard to hold on. Their feet are doing different things, but there’s the second part to the journey. It’s not only about finding your magnificent creator. The second part of your journey is then finding—now, you found it. Yay! Mazel tov. You’re incredible. Do your thing. Yes! Now that you have found your incredibleness, you can turn that light of confidence on your husband and say, “Wow. What’s incredible about him that I haven’t noticed before?” And, “Wow. Do you think I would have found this incredibleness had he not told me, ‘go do it,’ ‘I believe in you,’ ‘You’re great,’ ‘I’ll take care of the kids,’” these things—these women rising doesn’t happen just like women by themselves. It’s just not the truth. It feels like the truth but it’s not the truth. There’s a team of people, sisters, mothers, husbands, babysitters, supporting her rising. So, once she’s done all that stuff, now she’s gotta access her Rachel, her appreciator, her one that’s more attuned to other people than it is to herself and her creator and that whole gigantic luminescent light and say, “Whoa, whoa. I have been supported,” and that’s a beauty out there and then she can also as so many women do in their rising, take that energy of support and support others. So, she’s taking like the luminescent layer and she’s mirroring it in shalom bias with her own inner Rachel, her own inner supporter, and becoming whole and this restores the balance to her marriage because she may have thought that she outgrew her marriage but that’s just it’s kind of like Bat-Chen. It’s kind of like a temporary illusion that G-d allows us to have just so we can find ourselves. We’ve got to think like, “Wuhoo,” and then we come back to a place of deeper humility and say, “One second. I didn’t do this alone, and I can’t do this alone. And I’m gonna stump on everybody’s faces if I try to do this alone and I don’t want to be that guy.”

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

I don’t think that it’s possible to do it alone because you were talking about feminine and masculine energies, and feminine energy always does in a community, in a collective and that’s why it’s so powerful to have that collective of women because that is the only way that we can rise in a healthy way. When women try to do it the man’s way because that’s what we see—that shift when women got into the workplace and they were equals, and now the women have to do the same things like the men are doing, it wasn’t really that working because it’s not our nature. So, there is something really powerful about the new way things are happening and the shift in the world and everything that’s going on.

I want to talk about the story with the mirrors because it was so in line with the calm method that I have. So, CALM is Connect to yourself, Ask for abundance, Listen for the answer, and Master a higher level of consciousness, and in order for you to be able to approach your husband, step one is get in touch with yourself, and you were saying that was the first thing that happened—was first look into the mirror and see what do I want? What do I need? What’s going on with me? And that’s how we started is what do I need to heal in myself in order for me to heal my marriage—is first is come back to center before you start going out and looking for the answers. I think that’s so powerful.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

That’s awesome. Yeah, because see in the male-female, sometimes the answer that you’re looking for—you think it’s in your husband. “Why can’t he be more manly? Why isn’t he—” “I wanted to marry a great rabbi,” or, “Why am I making more money than he? He should be more than he should—,” “He should be more that,” or, “he should be more sensitive to my needs. He should give me more time,” and then you start to realize in the first part of that work is, “I’m looking for it in him but I meant to find it in myself.” That’s what Yaakov said to Rachel when she said, “Daven for me.” And he said, “No, no, no. You daven. You daven.”

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

So just say that again in a global term.

RIVKA MALKA PERLAMN

Let me explain. Yes, yes.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

Because not everyone is understanding here.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

Rachel was so despondent, so upset that she didn’t have children so she went to her husband, Yaakov (Jacob) and she said, “Pray for me,” and it says he got upset. This was a purposeful upset and he said, “Am I G-d? Am I G-d? No, no, no. You’ve got to pray for yourself,” so he was showing her you’re coming to a man for your deepest needs. You need to know that you have a direct connect with Hashem. You need to access that and Rachel she actually learned this from her sister, Leah. She took a page out of Leah’s book because Leah had the opposite problem. Rachel was looking for empowerment from a man and she had to say, “I’m going to find that in myself.” Leah was looking for validation of her beauty and her lovability in a man. She got married and she was not the intended for Yaakov. So it said that she felt hated. Yaakov was going to marry Rachel. Instead, her father switched it out so that Leah ended up marrying Yaakov and could you imagine how she felt. “I know this man did not want to marry me. I know this. I feel disgusting,” her eyes were wet with tears. Imagine in front of Rachel, who it says was beautiful, how is this Leah ever going to feel beautiful?

So, what happened with Leah is that she was in massive amounts of pain. She was that modern-day woman right now who feels like, “I’m so powerful and so manly,” or, “I’m so powerful and people think I’m aggressive,” or, “I’m so powerful my husband doesn’t support me or doesn’t like that about me. He just wants me to cook and clean.” She’s that woman and she named her first children—”G-d, see my pain. Hear my pain.” You saw she was in agony and she prayed and prayed and prayed until finally, she had Yehuda—and when she had Judah, it says [HEBREW]. This time, finally I will thank Hashem. What does that mean? She finally realized what? It’s not about anybody else. It’s about Hashem and I’m incredible in his eyes, and when she finally knew that what happens from Yehuda, from Judah, comes that deep knowing it’s me in the face of Hashem and that’s the truth, and then she then she was able to relax in her marriage because she didn’t need her husband to totally get her soul. She didn’t need her husband to see every aspect of her awesomeness. She knew about it in herself. How do we know that she relaxed in her marriage? Because—well I don’t want to talk too long there’s a whole ‘nother—

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

Go, go, go. Keep going. We want to know now because you asked the question. [Laughs]

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

How do that Rachel [Leah]—she relaxed in her marriage because see, she didn’t have the beauty. She didn’t have that sweet—

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

Leah or Rachel.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

Leah didn’t have that automatic feminine, “The man is gonna be crazy. I’m gonna be soft and I’m just gonna support him. I’m just gonna cook. I’m just gonna clean. I’m just gonna stay home and I’m gonna raise him up,” she didn’t have that. So, therefore what was her golden ticket? She had the children and that made her feel like, “At least I’m good to him in this way,” but then she realized at some point, “If I have even one more child, that is going to leave my dear sister Rachel with only one of the tribes to have,” because she knew through divine inspiration how many tribes there will be, and so she had this little baby growing inside of her and she said, “I’m going to give up on this tribe. I give it up and instead I give it to my sister,” she prayed to G-d and it became a girl that was Dina. So, she found her own love ability to such a degree that she could step aside for another person. She had nothing left to prove and the beautiful part is that once she did this, once she really stepped aside and relaxed, “I am enough. I know something about my own beauty,” she found a new kind of beauty, the Rachel beauty that lived inside of her—that even a woman who wants to accomplish a lot actually has that Rachel inside of her, she has that ability to support another, to not be competitive, to step aside to step away. She does have that beauty and when she finds that, that’s her completion. Her completion is not when she’s on the top of the mountain. It’s when she’s on the top of the mountain and she can make room for somebody else.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

I love that. Thank you. First of all, I just want to tell you that we love comments around here and we got a comment from Dezowit. Am I saying it right? I’m really sorry if I messed up your name but I love it. She says, “Rivka Malka is my favorite Rebbetzin,” and then she said, “Thank you for bringing her to share her wisdom.” So thank you so much for your comment. Anybody else who wants to ask a question or send a comment, you are welcome to.

Tell me about the healing because there’s so much out there that is spiritual but not connected to—not G-d-centered, and I think that a lot of people—everybody here is G-d-centered. It doesn’t matter what religion, it doesn’t matter how observant, but everybody has G-d at their core, and that’s immovable for them. So how do we find something that really aligns with and doesn’t contradict? Because there’s a lot of talk about healing and all sorts of different modalities in different ways and some align and some don’t, so I want to hear from you what you have to say about that.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

Absolutely. Thank you so much. So, it’s been a really fun journey for me to actually find out that the Torah has so much of these healing ideas and I think I needed to come to healing ideas more organically and then find them in the Torah because that was just more experiential for me, and for some people they’ll let on to a Torah idea and then they’ll bring it into their lives. So there are both ways, and for me, at least, there are two components to healing and that is lovability and worth. A person needs to know about both of these things. You could think of it like our father, our king, in our relationship with G-d as our father, we need to know that we’re loved and our relationship with G-d as our king, we need to know that we’re worthy. Same with our husbands. We need to know that they both love us and respect us. Same with ourselves otherwise we don’t treat ourselves. So one of the [coughs] pardon me still getting over a cold—one of the most beautiful parts of healing is the very, very first thing that I teach in coaching school and it’s the idea of holding space. Space is silent, actually and silence is like the mud in the desert. It could taste like anything you wanted it to. That was the treat of the month and silence is the same way. It’s consciousness. You can inject it. You can put inside of it anything that you want. So, the very first room in healing, the first domain in healing, is actually the space that you hold for yourself or for another, and what is it that you put into that space? For example, when a person is sitting shiva, we refer to G-d as Hamakom, the space the ultimate space holder for whatever happens in the grieving process. You’re laughing about an old memory? That’s okay. You’re crying, you don’t feel like talking, whatever happens in that space is okay. In our life, especially as children, when we’re young and impressionable, we are told the proper way to be. If you smile, people will like you. Stop crying. You share a big emotion, that’s too much. You get angry, we’re not allowed to get angry. So many tight ways that you’re supposed to be but in the healing the first thing is to hold space for what is.

You’re okay the same way as G-d holds space for us in in every which way. You’re feeling powerful and want to create something awesome? I’m not going to come and tell you, “Who are you to do that? You’re never going to succeed.” I’m going to say, “Go, you. I have space for your awesomeness. I have space for your magnificence.” You tell me, “I know I’m married to a good man but I can’t help feeling lonely,” I have space for that and you’re allowed to have space for that too. Whatever is coming up. “I’m still dealing with insecurities and I’m 65,” okay. That’s okay. So it’s kind of like learning how to hold space for what is for ourselves and for another I feel is the first key to healing, and it’s very radical—this kind of radical acceptance. In one of the classes, later on in the healing in our coaching school, we have the women do some poetry writing. If you don’t like poetry, don’t get scared. It comes out quite naturally. Just by titling it, I accept you, and it can be, I accept you, fear. That comes up unbidden, even when I feel confident, or it can be, I accept you codependence, that keeps on leaning into others even when she knows it’s not good for her, or it could be I accept you strength that feels like a million-dollar horsepower and doesn’t even know what to do with it. It’s just so much of I accept is the beginning of the healing.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

Right. That is so beautiful. Wow.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

Love your wow. I feel, Bat-Chen, that’s why you’re pointing to the women working with the women because our work with the men is fitting the other piece, finding our other piece but with women, you find a natural reflection of yourself so there’s a bigger space of I accept. I can hold space for what is. That’s why women join each other in birth. I get it. I’ve also birthed. I know what the process.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

Yes. Since six months ago, I had the most amazing home birth with a midwife, a doula, and my mother, my mother-in-law, my daughter, and my husband. We were all there. Thank you, covid. It was the most amazing thing, and that’s exactly what you’re saying—is the ability for everyone to hold space for this new soul, this new human, to come into the world. It’s exactly like that in every way and in business, we support each other as women. It’s so important to have a community and I love what you’re saying that that’s this first space, the first door you have to go through in healing because we’re not given that space, and we don’t give that space to ourselves on a regular basis.

Actually, one of the things that I took upon myself this month was to just pause. Every single day, just pause. I put my hands on my eyes and I just sit there for a minute. That’s all it takes to just stop and create space between the things that you’re doing, because when we run from one thing to the other we don’t have the time to just be, to digest what was, to prepare for what will be, to just—it feels like we’re running on a hamster wheel and it’s so, so important to create that space.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

Beautiful. I love the way you used space there. It’s so incredible just between activities to integrate, to be with—that’s just gorgeous.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

Yes. Yeah, I’m in a class where we learn Me’a She’arim, that’s the path to the just and that was the introduction—was you cannot be living your life as a hamster on a wheel because then you won’t stop to think, and you brought up pharaoh before, and that’s exactly what he did—was he kept them so busy that they didn’t have time to breathe, they didn’t have time to think, they didn’t have time to pray, they didn’t have time to say, “Oh my gosh. What’s going on with me? Where am I? What am I doing? Who am I? What’s—what do I even want?” They didn’t have that and that’s exactly what’s going to help us get out of our own stuckness—is to be able to really just breathe, create space. I love it.

In my program, I have a mastermind and G-d is at the core. Marriage and business have to work together and then you are the container to all of it, and the way I explain it is that a lot of women will say, “My plate is so full. I can’t take on more. I can’t grow my business because it’s just going to create more work and more—”And I say, “Okay, that’s one way of looking at it,” but what if you can get a bigger plate? What if you can work on yourself and expand yourself—expand that vessel so that you can contain more without having to get rid of anything but just be able to be there. Same thing like you were saying, create that space without having to get rid of stuff but just by being capable of more. That’s really what you were saying about the healing.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

Yeah, yeah, and I learned something before I started the coaching school. Well, my big endeavor—I had two big endeavors back-to-back. One was that I was a director of a young adult’s outreach program—young professionals outreach program and after that, I co-founded rapunzel with my husband. So, when I was doing the key riff program, the outreach program, I was taking care of—thank G-d, my big family and they were quite young then—and also I was doing whatever wasn’t fundraising, which means marketing, advertising, recruiting, one-on-one connecting with people, cooking [HEBREW] for 100 people—I had to make the chala myself, the whole thing, and I was learning social media and I was running the website, and I was up till four in the morning and it was I realized, “Gosh, you got to publish these things later,” because my participants would be like, “Rivka Malka, that email came in at four in the morning,” and I started to realize other people don’t think that that’s respectable because it wasn’t respectable, but it was a learning curve so I just thought, “I have to get more and more capable,” and I do believe like I was saying before, there’s transitional times when things are rocky. So, yeah that was my learning curve. I didn’t know anything about social media—this and nothing—

Okay, but then with time, the second chapter of my journey, I started to see that I wasn’t really driving business. I was driving my own dream, and that’s like chapter two. Chapter two—I’m thinking about three or four chapters here, but chapter two is like you’re creating this business but what’s really happening is that you’re creating yourself. It’s so exciting to share what you know. So, you’ll do things such as I did. I made retreats—many retreats. I think it was like 12 retreats in two years, but they were big, they were wonderful, but I barely made any money on them and I kept on charging more but it didn’t matter because I was busy making my own dreams come true—in other words, my dream for the people come true—that was I wanted to give everyone everything. So just bring on more stuff. Okay, I have to raise the price. More stuff, more things, better this, better that. I just wanted to have bracelets for every person so it’s like this mix between business and my fantasy of the retreat that I would want to attend, so it still wasn’t straight-up business, and it was still pushing my capacity. It was the equivalent of 4 a.m., so I stopped doing the 4 a.m, but I still wasn’t in the balance zone.

So chapter three was a really, really beautiful chapter and that is the realization. Oh, it’s so deep, and you’ve mentioned this in your CALM thing, so you’re going to understand this—in your CALM method but I’m forgetting my source right now—how I have so much to say on this. I’m trying to not say the whole Russia—okay, I don’t wanna give the whole speech but chapter three basically came when I had the realization that G-d does not need me to be out of balance. As a matter of fact, I can tap into G-d power and into G-d capacity rather than my own capacity because my own capacity was not bringing me the money or the balance that I wanted. So, as I began to open up to G-d capacity what it looked like, and this you referenced as well, was beginning to yearn and visualize the things that I wanted so that instead of creating, I let G-d be the creator and myself be the receiver. You understand I know.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

I love it.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

Yeah, G-d’s the creator. I’m here to be the good steward of his creations, and my mother taught me that word, steward. It’s such a powerful and important word. We’re not servants. Servants is lovely but you could become a rag. To be a steward of something means to hold it carefully and with honor. “Thank you, G-d, for this great honor that you’ve given me. You’re the creator and please, can I have the honor that you create through me. I’ll feel so close to you, then I’ll feel your love, then I want to do this for you and with you,” and the deeper that I tapped into prayer—and I hate to even use the word I because I can’t take any credit for it—G-d allowed me and directed me and guided me to teachers and friends and mentors that brought me to deeper and deeper prayer. The more I came this realization, that’s the creative power. It’s in giving back the creative power to G-d and so some of the things some of the ways that looked like was daily time with G-d in prayer, number one. Like expressed prayer that’s my primary relationship. Number two, writing out a list of yearnings and Bat-Chen, this list is long. It’s not short. It’s everything I want. I want to not speak, question Hara ever. I want the most beautiful marriage. I want so much money that I’m giving incredible to [HEBREW]. I want to help heal the hearts of his children. I want to see the [HEBREW] in my days. I want all my children—all the things list the list of things that I want and to read it every day and reading it every day means that I’m aligning my will deeper and deeper and deeper because I understand I’m not making this stuff up. Rivka mark is not the creator. I’m not creating fantasies in my mind. The great creator is drip dropping and downloading desires into my mind so that I will give them back up to him and pray. It’s like a circle, how like rain goes in a circle, the clouds drip and then they evaporate and go back up. G-d is giving me an ache and a pain and a yearning, and I take that yearning and I say, “Okay, now I know what to pray about,” open it up to prayer and that is really when I feel like finally—I shouldn’t say finally because that almost sounds like a complaint—that is when I hit chapter three of flow, and flow—and you don’t hit flow right away. That’s just not possible. You have to do the hard the hard work of sorting out what you don’t want, but the flow–baruch Hashem. I’m very, very grateful for it.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

Yes, yes and I love that. I love that. First of all, you said, “It’s not me. I can’t take credit,” but there is something about being willing to ask, being willing to say, “I am ready. I want to do your will,” and I think that for a long time, I was praying for abundance and I want to do this, I’m here for you, blah, blah, blah. It felt really nice but when I finally put my hand on the table and said, “Okay, G-d. I think I haven’t been clear. This is what I want and it’s because you put it in my like—” and you get really real with yourself without all of that facade of, “Oh I want to be that good girl that asks nicely.” No. “Me and you, we’re in this together, and you put this in my mind and we’re going to do this.” You turn it around and take responsibility, ownership, over your will to do G-d’s will so much that you’ve just opened the door. That’s the key. So, the credit doesn’t go to you for doing anything but it goes to you for wanting, for being ready, for saying, “I am here and I am willing to hear what it is that you want,” because a lot of us are walking around the world being like, “Okay, I want to do your will,” and it’s all great and we just keep going we don’t stop to look at what is it that you want me to do. So, I give you credit even though you don’t give yourself credit because I think that it’s really important to also not think that it’s a mistake. It’s like, “some people are lucky. G-d sends them their purpose and they get clarity, and some people are just not lucky—” it’s not like that. You gotta want it and if you want it, then you’ve opened the door. You’ve allowed it to come in. You’ve readied yourself, so there is something that you can do in order to step over—is to you have to want it and you have to be ready for it. It’s not a mistake. It’s not a mistake that Rivka Malka is where she—is she wanted to be there and she’s gone through the steps to get there. I don’t want you to think that it was a mistake or a fluke because then it doesn’t give people the empowerment that it’s possible for them.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

Thank you. Wow. I haven’t really thought of that, so thank you.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

You’re welcome.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

Yeah. Yeah, I used to pray a lot. Really, really a lot, and I would say Hineni, like, “Hineni, please,” and I had something interesting that happened to me. There was a time in my life where I knew that I wanted to create but it had no vessel. I it was like, “I want to like do awesome and be big, and I want people to feel amazing,” and I didn’t have the vessel and I couldn’t conceive of the vessel. It was just this burning like, “I want what you’ve given to me to be translated into healing for others, and—”

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

I love how you did that. Did you see how you’re trying to breakthrough? And that’s the name of my retreat, the marriage breakthrough retreat. I love that because it’s exactly that. It’s like you have this real desire and you just want to break through to the other side of the—yeah, I love it. Okay, so keep going.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

Yeah, well I want to hear about your retreat in just a minute because I love retreats and I’m not doing them yet. I’m not doing them right this minute, so I got to hear about yours, but I think what I wanted to express about that is that people can feel like even ashamed to want big. Maybe it’s not spiritual, maybe it’s not—yeah, basically maybe it’s not spiritual or maybe it’s egocentric, etc. And oh my goodness, I’m seeing these comments coming up—thank you.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

Yeah, and it [says] “Two terrific, inspirational women.” Thank you.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

Thank you. Yeah, thank you everyone for listening with us. It’s so special.

What was I just saying? Yes, we can be ashamed or feel unworthy of having a big dream. So we need to realize that we are G-d-presence in this world. We are who Hashem is counting on. We are who our forefathers are counting on. They did everything they could. Our parents, grandparents, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—they set the stage for who for us. We’re the ones who are alive now for this short period of time, so it’s not from your ego. The reason why you might have shame or think you can’t or think you’re not worthy is because you’re getting mixed up with childhood trauma that says, “Be a good, quiet little girl,” or, “Only be spiritual,” or be it today or all that. That’s an error in thinking because the truth is that we have an opportunity and a responsibility to give to G-d’s world in whatever way that we can, and you may be afraid thinking that it’s ego, but ego is not something to be ashamed of. Ego is the tiniest sliver of self and Bechira, free will, choice that G-d gave to us so that we would have this desire to produce so that we wouldn’t be completely subsumed in in the heavenly realities. G-d wants us to have a personality and desires, etc. So—

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

I love it because my business is called Connected for Real, and it came out that way because people were I was asking for feedback—what am I doing here? Because sometimes you don’t see it on yourself, and everybody says you have this connection it’s just like, “Whoop! Up to G-d,” and there’s a very straight connection but it’s very practical, and you can’t have spiritual without reality and you can’t be living in reality without having that connection to G-d. It has to come together so it came out Connected for Real because you have to be for real, but you also have to be connected and that’s exactly what you’re saying is that there it’s all about G-d but without me being, in reality, living in this world, there is nothing that’s going to move forward and G-d is sending me exactly what I need to do and—

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

Deeper. Deeper, Bat-Chen. Deeper, my darling. Because what G-d wants is to make a deeper [HEBREW]. That means that G-d wants to have a dwelling place down here. Tortona means the lower world. He’s got it in the upper worlds. He wants to be here with us, and the more G-d is here with us, the more we make actions of kindness, we rise into our dignity, we find beautiful boundaries, we treat one another with respect, we create organizations—the more we’re making G-d centers in this world is the ultimate redemption, is the holy temple on this earth—physical, tangible. So when you’re talking business with your women, you’re actually showing them, “Okay, here’s the channel to take all your G-d energy and create something physical in this world that people can tap into.”

It’s awesome. It’s like it is the work. Our work is not to live in the heavens.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. We can’t. We can’t. People who live a spiritual life that’s like a pie in the sky, are not actually living in spiritual. They’re living in something that is disconnected because as much as you think you’re connected to the point where you don’t need this world at all is actually a disconnect because this world is the exact place you need to bring that light. It’s not somewhere else. It’s right here. This is where it is, and I love that you said one of the things that holds everybody back is like, “Oh, if I have this big dream or if I actually go and do my thing, it’s going to change me. I’m not going to be as humble,” “Maybe I won’t be as connected—” which by the way, I had to go through because everybody has to go through—it’s amazing how much more connected you are when you are pursuing the dream because you have to be connected in order to get what’s the next breadcrumb, and what’s the next step and what’s the next breadcrumb and you have no idea where you’re going, but you trust so much that G-d knows what He’s doing and He’s sending you the guidance and he’s with you the whole time.

So just for all of you who are thinking, “What’s going to be if I actually make it?” It’s going to be great. You’re just going to be the same but more impactful, more amplified.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

Amplified is a beautiful word. I wanted to say, Bat-Chen, something about how I was talking about my 4 a.m. stint. That imbalance towards like, “I need to create.” I also had a time when I went the opposite way, where I did only live in this spiritual and I feel I’m not there now and that’s a good thing because I’m grounded, but the time that I spent only in the spiritual and it was an extended period of time, years, was very important for me and I wouldn’t change it the same way as I wouldn’t change my learning curve on the creator side. I needed to go into that imbalance, into the heavenly spheres, to find the kind of connection with G-d that would fill me and satisfy me so that when I was grounded, I wouldn’t get lost again in this world and I wouldn’t be like chasing Rivka Malka. I needed to go all the way there in order to come back to center. So even though—

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

That’s by the way very healthy. It’s okay. It’s okay. The Rambam in Maimonides says that in order to find balance you have to go sometimes to the other extreme and then find what works for you, which is why the work is so unique. A lot of business coaches will say, “Do this thing. It’s going to get you results, and it’s going to get you where you need to go,” but there is no such thing as one size fits all. It is so, so, so customized and unique to every single one of us because we each have our own journey, and it’s all about the journey. It’s not about the results. It’s about how you find what you need to find and go through the things you need to go through. So, I appreciate that you said that because, just like we said before with the space, everything is safe in this space because you have to go through whatever you have to go through and that’s exactly what you need to do and where you need to be, and there’s no judgment on that. So, if somebody is all the way up here or all the way down here or somewhere in the middle or finding balance or constantly moving their hands and feet to try and ground themselves, that’s exactly where they need to be and that’s amazing.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

Yeah, I’m right there with you. I feel that G-d is the one who’s leading the journey and he’s going to lead us to lean towards the creator or towards this godly receiving place as we need it, and I just—I don’t—I wouldn’t want anyone to feel, “Oh, I’m not so G-d centered. I’m just creating business. I’m not godly,” because that would be nonsense and the same way in the opposite way, “I find my way in prayer and surrender, so I’m not doing it.”

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

Because then every day, it changes. This is one of those things that people think like, “Okay, I found my place. This is where I am. This is where balance lives. This is where I’m staying,” but really, it’s not like that because you keep being thrown off and you keep having to find balance that’s why your core has to be so strong. You’re constantly rebalancing and refocusing and finding groundedness. So, some days you’re gonna have to do more and some days you’re going to have to do less, and some days you’re going to feel aligned and some days you’re going to feel out of whack, and they’re all part of your life and they’re all part of this beautiful picture. There is no ideal place to be and there is no safe place to be.

Sometimes with parenting, you think, “Okay, I’ve made my rules and now we stick to them,” and then what happens? Your kids grow up and they’re teenagers and the rules don’t work anymore. Now what? Now what? You have to rethink. You have to constantly stay awake. You can’t fall asleep on the job and be like, “I found balance. Now I’m ready. I’m all good I’ve checked that box just connecting with G-d.” It’s like, “I haven’t connected once.” It’s a constant work. We’re constantly reconnecting and you can’t fall asleep on the job.

Tell us where people can find you because I’m sure people are going to be looking for that.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

Ah, well I’m excited about the timing of this because our coaching school only opens for registration twice a year, and registration is open now. Literally, just a couple of days ago because we’re starting training on February 3rd. So, if you want to find out about that just go to rivkamalka.com. It’s right there on the front page, and when you’re there you’ll see that we actually have two-track.s there’s a self-development track and there’s a coaching certification track because a lot of women just want to come for the healing journey. They may not want all those extra hours of practice and the supervision and everything, so for them, there is a self-development track and we also are in the process of getting ICF certified, which is a very very exciting milestone for us. Baruch Hashem. Yeah, it’s a really big deal. So, yeah we really are about empowering women and bringing them a compassionate healing experience and of course, that sisterhood is built-in, so it’s it’s very very beautiful and you can find me at Rivkamalka.com.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

That’s beautiful. Thank you so much to Rivka Malka for being with us. This was absolutely amazing. So, everybody. Thank you for your comments. Thank you for the beautiful, beautiful presence of Rivka Malka.

I am so happy. This is a dream come true. You’re one of the women on my list of like if one day I get famous enough, then Rivka Malka will be on my show, and I guess I made it.

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

I feel so honored to be here. I really do, Bat-Chen. I want to give you a berakah. There’s such a beautiful light that comes from you, and your enthusiasm and sincerity is just contagious, so I bless you that you should continue to be a magnet for women who are rising in a beautiful way that keeps their marriage intact, and I bless you with ultimate abundance and strong bias and just all your heart’s desires you should see Mashiach in your days.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

Amen, Amen. Thank you. Thank you and same to you, all the blessings. It’s just amazing. Everybody who’s watching this right, now we are blessing you too may we all dance together in the [Hebrew].

RIVKA MALKA PERLMAN

Amen.

REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN

Thank you so much. 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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