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In This Episode
There is an overlap between your marriage and your health journey, especially with food. Lily Aronin, Holistic Nutritionist and creator of the Ideal Weight Shabbat Blueprint, talks about how marriage can be a huge emotional weight that makes it difficult for women to take care of themselves and their marriage. There is a prize waiting for you if you listen to this episode. Watch out for a discount off Lily’s program.
Highlights
1:07 Lily Aronin is a Holistic Nutritionist who helps women have an amazing relationship to food and their body using Jewish spiritual practices, Her program is called the Ideal Weight Shabbat Blueprint.
2:04 From Lily’s experience, marriage comes up as this huge emotional weight that really makes it difficult for women on Shabbos and during the week because if can affect their self-esteem and their relationship with food.
7:48 Shabbat is like a battery pack for a Jewish woman’s whole week. Despite responsibilities being thrown at you, it’s important to think ahead and know what you need to do, which is put yourself in a situation where you’re guided.
11:34 Another issue that Lily’s community experiences is handling a morning routine.
14:47 Lily attended the Marriage Breakthrough Retreat, and she loved the meditations that Rebbetzin Bat-Chen gave. A meditation library is available in the FLY and FLOW Masterminds of Rebbetzin Bat-Chen.
16:44 Rebbetzin Bat-Chen’s FLY Mastermind is a six-month program for women who want to take their marriage and put it on the right track.
26:39 Intimacy can be a trigger for nighttime eating for women.
33:32 Lily believes that marriage complements a woman’s health journey. Listen here for a surprise from Lily!
37:32 The Ideal Weight Shabbat Blueprint is a six-week program with lifetime access to content to create a healthy lifestyle that will bring you to your ideal weight sustainably. You can receive all the abundance and great life lessons that you can apply to your relationship with food on Shabbos and all week long, and still have our Jewish obsession with food and still love our body and be at a healthy weight and optimal health.
Links
Lily Aronin: Website | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram | Podcast | Ideal Weight Shabbat Blueprint
FLOW Mastermind – A Business Mastermind for an Integrated Life
FLY Mastermind – A Marriage Mastermind for a Fulfilling Life
5 Surprising Ways to Improve Your Marriage
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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. This one is a mini-sode because we don’t have that much time but I had to have Lily on because she’s so awesome. I’m going to introduce myself and then Lily’s gonna tell you what she does. I am a G-d-centered marriage coach for women in business and my whole specialty is marriage, and that’s what I’m here to do make sure that your marriage is on the right track. So, Lily introduce yourself then we’re going to talk about it.
LILY ARONIN
So I’m Lily Aronin, and I’m a Holistic Nutritionist. I help women have an amazing relationship to food and their body using Jewish spiritual practices, and my program is called the Ideal Weight Shabbat Blueprint because instead of Shabbat being the reason that we aren’t meeting our health goals and being out of routine, it’s actually where all the abundance and great life lessons start that we can apply to our relationship to food on Shabbos and all week long to have our Jewish obsession with food and still love our body and be at a healthy weight and optimal health.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I love that. I love that so much and I love how we align in the things that we speak about. We bring the goodness of G-d and why we’re here to enjoy and all of the lights in this world and use it in a positive way and not in a way that feels icky, so I love that.
LILY ARONIN
So, one of the things that I’m so excited about being here is that when I coach people all the time, marriage comes up as this huge emotional weight that really makes it difficult for them on Shabbos and during the week, of course, to then take really good actions about—for themselves because it so affects our self-esteem as Jewish women when our marriage isn’t in a good place. It makes it so hard to take care of ourselves in that respectful way that we really deserve.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yes. Marriage is one of those things that affects every part of your life—every single part of your life, and we often run to things to distract ourselves from this thing in our life that isn’t working and it’s frustrating because you want it to work. You went into it hoping it would work and something isn’t up. It’s frustrating. So, instead of having to deal with that frustration, you turn to food or work. Workaholic is a big thing and other such very nice ways of running away from it and numbing it.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
A hundred percent. In fact I definitely see a lot with people that I’m helping with their relationship to food that they do run away to work, so their home isn’t a happy place or their kitchen feels like it’s this center of stress because of their husband and because of their husbands talking to the kids this way and so they don’t want to be in the kitchen doing a little bit of meal prep. Everything feels like you’re going through like mud to just do the very simple things that they could be doing to make their health better, to make their family’s health better. And when you feel better about yourself and in your body, then all of a sudden you’re showing up with more self-respect, but when you then turn around and you’re looking at your spouse and you know you’re speaking in a way that doesn’t feel right to you and then your spouse is speaking to you in a way that doesn’t show that he thinks you’re worthy and that he thinks you’re [not] worthy of love, you turn around and that plate of yummy healthy food doesn’t feel in alignment with who you really are. That plate of food that is processed and just came out of the freezer and you didn’t really have time to put it together or eating your kids leftover food off their plate or just grabbing a bowl of cereal or just eating their crust of their pizza—these behaviors—a lot come from that lack of self-esteem and self-respect no matter how much good you’re putting in there. When you turn around and you hear how you’re speaking to your spouse and you feel how they’re speaking to you, it just crushes it from the inside.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yes, and you know what I love you said? The mud because I talk a lot about the mud where we’re swimming in mud. We’re constantly just telling over and over again the reasons and the stories of why our marriage is broken and why it’s his fault or why this is happening because we’re trying to protect ourselves because [it’s] just a natural way of dealing with the world. And one of the things I love to do is just like, “Let’s get out of the mud and let’s choose a different path.” You don’t have—nobody is forcing you to stay there. Nobody is telling you [that] you have to stay in the mud and swim in it for the rest of your life, and once you realize it’s a choice and you actually get to choose, why would you stay there? You don’t want to. Now, at this point when you realize the awareness that it’s not where you want to be the next step is now how do I get out of here how? How?
LILY ARONIN
I know that you have kids in bidud (isolation) right now. We can hear them. I literally just came out of six kids—six weeks of somebody sick with corona, including myself, or in quarantine and I just spent a whole month trying to equip people with tools against emotional binging and food amnesia and all of these things, and what is crazy is that when you feel like your marriage isn’t in a good place, it can be really hard. You can be in pain but you’re still then able to say, “Hey, I’m in pain. Can you make sure I at least have healthy food? We’re all locked in the house, I’m locked with the kids. If I come out of this and I feel bloated and swollen and not good in my body then it’s just going to make this whole situation worse.” But if you don’t have that communication and you don’t have that good relationship then you feel like you’re locked in quarantine with your kids and your only outlet is food, that’s going to make you feel bad and it may make you feel good in that second but it really is making you feel bad and you’re gonna exit that six week—four week—whatever cycle it is that you’re in in the world in that moment—and instead of feeling empowered and free, “Oh my gosh. Thank G-d we made it through this hard thing,” you feel like, “Oh my G-d, I really have to pull it together. I really let myself go.”
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
And that’s where all the judgment comes in and all of the guilt and the shame and the icky stuff, and then you start having the meta-emotions, which is like, “I’m guilty for feeling guilty and I feel shame—ashamed for even being ashamed,” that you go in circles. I totally agree with you.
We just finished two weeks of quarantine just to go back to school for half a day to be told that the teacher has corona and we’re back in, so thank you for your understanding with my background noise. Oh my goodness.
What are the questions that came up from your community? Because I saw that you posted. Send me your questions because we want to deal with them I want to really be here for your people, so let’s hear what are things are coming up for them
LILY ARONIN
So, for the people in my community, they’re working on their health and their relationship to food during the week and on Shabbat and looking at Shabbat is kind of a battery pack for their whole week. So, they have a healthy mindset and relationship to food. They know what to put on their plate and it’s very, very clear. What’s crazy for them is that when they get home from work and let’s say their husband’s been in charge of the kids for an hour or two, it’s like they walk in and all of that negative energy hits them. Everybody wants their attention and all the judgments about their husbands overwhelm them and what they thought they were supposed to eat, they cannot physically remember. They’re saying they know it should be easy, I know what to put on my plate, I literally can’t think of a single healthy thing to eat because I’m consumed with so much resentment and anger to everybody else around me, and I just want to do good for my family.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
This reminds me when I had my oldest, [who] is now 15, but when she was young, she would wake up in the middle of the night with nightmares and whatever it was, I was trying to figure out how to help her and I read all these things and whatever and the main thing was deal with it when it’s not night. Prepare during the day when it’s safe, when she knows that everything’s okay, talk about what’s going on, how can we prepare, create something—there’s all those art projects that are like little things that are hanging that can really ground them or we gave her a prayer book to put under her pillow—whatever it was that would calm her down. The preparation was such a huge step for [it] and dealing with the actual night and when you know that this is a pattern for you that you come home and every time you come home, you feel like there’s a drop, then you know exactly what you need to prepare but that’s not the time to do it. That’s not when you’re going to be like, “Okay, let me sit down and do the work now on my husband so that I can get in a better mindset.” No. Everything is being thrown at you. You have to really think ahead, so that’s really important to know because then you can know what you need to do, which is put yourself in a situation where you’re guided. You’re given the tools you have, the skills that you need in order to be able to handle that. And, we just finished my retreat by the way, and day six was all about designing the atmosphere in your home, and it really comes back to you. It comes back to how you’re feeling about all the parts of your life and how you’re dealing with all the things that are coming up because if you feel good about yourself, then whatever anything anybody else says from outside is not going to trigger you anymore.
LILY ARONIN
And I know. I actually have been to your retreat because I’m always working on myself. I’m not just about telling the people in my community, “Okay, well you should work on your marriage. It really affects your health.” I’m like, “Well, my marriage affects my health too. So, I gotta embody that and show up and be an example.” So, in your program, you have a very clear system that you’re not just like, “Okay, well you should think in advance.” You really lay out for people how do I deal with those feelings of resentment beforehand clearly so that I can show up, and then at night and I’m—and I can just seamlessly make the—because the food plan that we give, it’s so easy to follow. There’s no measuring. There’s no any of that stuff but when you’re so consumed with rage and frustration because of your home life, it doesn’t matter how easy it is. You can’t. You can’t take action.
The second story that people brought up that was very similar was morning routine—that getting the kids out to school in the morning. All of my clients work, whether they work from home or they work at an office, but they all have a job and getting the kids out and making time to prep any food for themselves for their day, no matter how simple it is. I can give them literally a five minute meal plan but when their marriage and their home life feels like this huge mud, taking the simple actions that show them the respect and the care which will only energize them and make them happier just feels like I’m speaking another language.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I love this question. You just brought me back in time to the time when I was working from home and my husband had just lost his job and he was all depressed. He used to sit on the couch and be like, “Oh, I don’t know what to do with myself.” Like, really a bad place. It feels so vivid right now because you just brought me back there and I remember not being able to go into the kitchen because anytime I would go from the office to the kitchen, I would have to see him and it would trigger all the stuff again. I felt so lost. So like, “I don’t know what to do anymore,” and I went to ask my mentor for help—this was many years ago and she was able to switch the mindset and switch what I was thinking so much. Her thing was gratitude, so I started being grateful for my husband just being there and it changed everything. It changed everything because I finally didn’t make it about me. He was going through whatever he was going through and it had nothing to do with me, and slowly I was able to move myself away from that and really separate myself from it, but you were saying about the morning routine and sometimes how things—a couple years ago, I realized that I don’t take care of myself in breakfast time because of all the things going on. I’m just not a morning person and so I asked my husband to make me breakfast and because I’ve been working on my marriage all these years and this is what I do, so I have to constantly be on top of it— I think it is a gift, by the way. I have to be, “I’m accountable to all of you.” I just said like, “This is really hard for me. Do you think that you can make me breakfast?” and he’s really good at being consistent and being organized and having things done. So, every single [morning] after I pray, I know that there’s something on the stove for me and I actually sit down and eat a hot meal, which is way more than I could have imagined if I would have done it for myself.
So, sometimes the work isn’t figuring out the technical stuff. The work is the worthiness. Am I actually worthy of sitting down like you were saying about eating the leftovers and just shoving whatever is there. Am I worthy of having a hot meal in the morning? Is it okay that my husband is spoiling me, and making me food, and what are people gonna say about that? And, “Oh your husband helped so much it’s not fair.” All those things were coming up for me and I had to deal with them so you were saying about my program, it’s so systemized to make sure that you have a holistic view and that you’re not just dealing with marriage in a vacuum.
LILY ARONIN
One of the one of the things that I love about your retreat and one of the amazing meditations— you take it very practical but also visualizing a better future and I think that when I came out of quarantine my husband arranged for us to go away overnight together. We’d been quarantined separately. I was quarantined with my daughter. We hadn’t seen each other in a week and previously to how much work I’d been putting in my marriage, that would have been, “Okay, well let’s go to these really indulgent restaurants,” and, “Let’s do all these things that I really—” and whatever and he really said to me, “Okay, I know that you want to eat healthy. Tell me what restaurants are gonna work best for you and tell me what you need to have on a menu if I’m also wanna get a burger. What kind of burger place is also gonna have things that are really gonna make it fun for you?” And because I’ve been so consistent in working on my health without making him change, just asking him to help me do it for me so then when he’s planning things, also he’s taking that into consideration but that wasn’t how it started at the beginning.
At the beginning, it was me resenting him for having ice cream in the fridge and telling him he can’t have his ice cream in the freezer because I’m gonna eat all his ice cream. I had to really work on myself to be like, “If I want ice cream, that’s on me. Somebody else can have things in house.” If I want to ask him to keep his ice cream in the bottom shelf of the freezer under the frozen vegetables, that is totally okay because that’s about me and not about him not having things that are good for him, and this is the overlap between needing to work on your marriage and then how it really helps when you’re on a health journey with your food you need to have both because you don’t live in a vacuum.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Exactly. In my program—I have a six month and then one year. The one year is for women in business but the six month program for women who just really want to take your marriage, pick it up, put it on the right track and push it to where it’s actually amazing. It’s a six month program because the first three months, you’re focused so much on yourself. You could get all of that weird looks and the what are you doing and I don’t know why you’re talking differently suddenly and why do you think that you’re doing this or that and that’s okay because then the second phase is when your husband comes and joins you, and he realizes, “I actually like the new you. I actually like that you’re looking at everything from all the different angles and that you’re working in a way that’s making you well-rounded—that it’s not just like focusing on one thing, I’m getting really good here but I’m leaving everything else behind. Wow. I like this. I’m into it.” And then you end up having that merge but that merge can only happen in the second phase because the first phase is so important. It’s creating your own wants and one of the things that I had to work on, and obviously if I had to work on it, a lot of my clients have to go through it too, it’s creating my want versus our want, like we want blah, blah, blah. No. I don’t care about what we want. What do you want?
So then the next thing is, “Well, I just don’t want it to be this way. I don’t want him to talk to me that way. I don’t want—” blah, blah, blah. It’s like, “Okay, I get what you don’t want. You’ve been focusing on that your whole life. Let’s find out what you do want,” and that’s really hard to answer and that’s where I want to really hone in. The first three months of the program [there is] so much clarity, so much letting go of all of the baggage and all of that stuff that’s holding you back and the stories and the mud and the swimming and all of that that can stay. That’s fine and it doesn’t make it okay. It just means you don’t have to carry it anymore and then you can just go and fly and be free and light and happy and that’s where it starts getting really good because now you can actually be your full self.
LILY ARONIN
Yeah, one of the other scenarios that I’ve seen come up a lot and that people were asked about into their marriage is, “You know, I have kids and a spouse and things that with—” and it’s pretty common nowadays that somebody has this in their family and I know for a lot of us there’s so much self-judgment and judgment in the marriage depending on who’s the spouse that has it that, “Where did it come from? Genetically and now I have to deal not just with the kids but I’m dealing with the spouse or I’m feeling negative about myself and dealing with this in the family and that always affects our food because it affects our meal time. It affects the organization, affects the cleanliness—” It affects all these things that you’re like, “I can’t go in the kitchen if it’s covered in dishes and wrappers and mess. I can’t go make myself a healthy meal. I can’t even think about grabbing a cucumber out of the fridge. I’m just gonna go to the pantry and grab [a] bag of chips,” because the kitchen is like—and it doesn’t matter if you’re the one with who are eating or if it’s the other people who are eating in your house left their clutter everywhere. It’s crazy and I know that when my clients are working on their marriage and working on their mindset in such a concrete program where they’re working on their thoughts and then they’re working on how they’re interacting and communication, like you teach, that then they look at that kitchen and instead of seeing like a big red stop sign, you can’t go in there, they can start to see like, “Okay, I know I can focus on—” like you said, “What I want to happen next so that I can get to my cucumbers, not so that I just turn around grab the potato chips and run the other way,” and how it is like your FLY Program, that six-month program equip[s] women when they are overwhelmed by the clutter and the mess and the housework, to figure out what they really want and to better their life.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I love it. Okay, so first thing is FLY stands for Find G-d in everything, Love your marriage and You as a whole person in your best self, and I feel like these are the main pillars that create that fulfilling life when you bring G-d into everything, when you actually connect for real. That’s my business, Connected for Real. You are so connected on such a real level and it’s not like, “Oh my G-d, stuff is here and my life is here and they don’t have anything to do with each other.” It’s like, “No. They are one and the same,” and G-d is here to make sure that you have an amazing life that’s why He gave you life. He wants to help you. He wants to guide you. So, first pillar is bring G-d into it. The thing is that we have a lot of beliefs about G-d that are really detrimental to our relationship with G-d so—
LILY ARONIN
I love this part of your retreat. Guys, this is so true if you grew up like I did in like Jewish school system, listen right now.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Not only that, but the Christians who come are saying the same thing about the Christian school system because every school system has its thing. They want to make sure to protect you and they want you to follow the line, and so there’s a lot of things maybe they come out of fear maybe they come out of trying to control maybe it comes out of whatever they learned and they’re just passing on and we have a lot of things that we believe that are not actually working. They’re not actually true they’re not what G-d really is and so when we can let go of all that and we get really, really clear what does my soul want what is my purpose what does G-d want for me what am I worthy of—a lot of worthiness work that is—that’s one really big part and that’s the core of the program above that we have courage and marriage is really that thing that overflows into every part of your life, so when your marriage is strong and good and aligned and whatever, it’s great. You can handle anything. You feel like woohoo, and when there’s one little area, one little thing, everything else feels stuck, like the money and the career and something with the kids and the in-laws and the whatever, everything comes up and it’s always from that core. So, I went into marriage because I knew that I was able to help you in every aspect of your life because your marriage is that source of overflow, and then the last part is you. When you can hold all of that, when you can hold your life that revolves around G-d and you are that container that vessel you can then do amazing things. Now, here’s the thing people say, “My plate is too full. I can’t take on any more things.” Well, my answer to that [is] you can have two options. Either you take things off your plate so that you have more room for yourself, which is what most people are telling you to do. Do less and delegate whatever, but my approach is, instead leave all the stuff on your plate and just grow your plate, learn to receive more. Learn to contain more, learn to become more because you are meant for more and you, as a container, will become so capable of handling all of these things and you’re going to have air and you’re going to have space and things are going to flow in a different way when you’re able to contain your life in that way. So, we work a lot on creating space and really getting grounded and finding what works for us and creating systems and everything by the way is unique to you. Every woman that comes through the program is going to have something different that works for her and that’s one thing that I really believe in—is that you can’t have this one size fits all, oh, just do this and it’s going to work for you. It’s not because a lot of people have different styles of doing things, so most of the program is built on what is the answer that came up for you. You get really, really good at being in intuition, being in that space of receiving, and having the clarity and then you’re going to see how that affects everything else in your life.
LILY ARONIN
Yeah, and in the scenario that I gave about the breakfast, I remember in your retreat, one of the things that you talked about was I need to have all these things allowed to be happy. I need for the kitchen to be perfectly clean before I’m allowed to cook a meal in it. Like, “Oh, I can learn how to communicate and I can get the tools and I can take.” You have less to do in the house and get everybody else to do more but also like you said, I could grow my plate and I can finally to tolerate the mess while getting my needs met.
Well, I learned the communication skills to handle the house better, but all these limiting stories that we have—I can’t be happy. I can’t work out if the kids are also wrong. I can’t—I can’t run business if my kids are in bidud (isolation). I can’t be on a call I can’t do any of that stuff versus like, No, I can do so many more things that I let myself go, and I got that out of your retreat and you’re from 100—
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yeah, I call that an integrated life, where you can integrate every part of your life in a way that feels and flow—that’s by the way, the FLOW Mastermind for women in business. That’s what we focus on the most—is creating that integration, creating that wholeness, because holistically you are one and there’s a bunch of parts of you and they all have to work together for you to feel like everything is in alignment. You can’t—you can’t lie to yourself and that’s one of the aspects that we really work on—is the intimacy physical and emotional intimacy because a lot of times on the outside, the façade, everything’s okay, everything’s great, and if that’s not okay, then your shame about it is so, so big that you’re not able to have that integrated life because you have a part of you that’s missing, that’s lacking, that’s lagging.
LILY ARONIN
That’s the last thing that people really brought [up]—was struggling with nighttime eating. The lack of intimacy in the marriage is a huge part of why that is such a tremendous trigger for so many women. I’m not going to that amazing time with my husband where we’re really connected at night or intimate either emotionally or physically. It’s we’re sitting side by side, watching TV and snacking or well, whenever we have that time, it has to be with cookies and tea. Well, if it was a single cookie and tea, it probably wouldn’t be a problem but the problem is the intimacy is actually lacking there and the cookies are the point to get you to sit down for five seconds together or the mindless eating at night just—and going back to the fridge and because you just feel unsupported and unconnected.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I love it. One time, my mother put a chair in front of the fridge door and just stared at [it]. She’s like, “There’s no point. I keep coming back and forth. I’ll just sit right here,” and you’re reminding me [that] this is exactly what it is. It’s like we’re constantly looking for the answer. We’re looking for something external that’s going to fill the need, something external is going to plug this hole right now because I feel empty and I don’t want that anymore. I’m sick of the things that are just going to give the superficial answer. I created a system that really, really goes deep and goes to the core and starts from there, so everything that was built on all that non-truths just comes crashing down. I don’t have to work hard to take it one floor at a time. It just goes and then you have this amazing ground to start working on because you’re creating actual systems that work for you in your life. That’s really what it’s all about, and I love that you brought that up.
LILY ARONIN
It’s so true and I think that one of the programs that I’ve worked with my clients is the 2B Mindset and what I love about teaching and working with that model is that we don’t say, “Okay, we’ll, like in Weight Watchers, just go for a walk, honey or put your [inaudible] on the fridge.” No. None of that is gonna help when there’s like that big empty gaping hole that’s really your marriage or really a relationship with your kids or really any of those things, but I think that one of the things you say that is so true and also true about our relationship with food is that when it all comes down to your relationship with you first and I love that that is the first thing that you address in your program, and I would so much rather somebody in my program who’s struggling with late night eating and I can give them all the techniques but if they can’t take action on them, I want them to go and deal with the core issue. That’s not what we’re dealing with in our group. I want them to not just keep saying, “I’m a failure and feel shame,” because they can’t implement what they need to implement. I want them to dig deep and say, “Hey, where’s the gap?” and go to join your program, to meet that gap, so that then they could come back and we can work on the stuff that I’m going to help them with in terms of not the relationships of food but they need to work with you to get that relationship that makes them feel empowered, to take care of themselves.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yes, I love that you said it all comes back to you and [in] the retreat, we don’t even talk about your husband until day three because he’s not the problem. He’s not the issue even though we like to use him as the excuse and we feel very entitled to it because he’s the husband so it just makes sense. I once had a friend who said mothers are [there] so that kids have who to blame when they grow up. This is pretty much what husbands are. It’s just the convenient way to get away with not having to take responsibility.
I really believe what you said about it doesn’t matter what tools I give you. It doesn’t matter what hacks, it doesn’t matter what skills, because you’re not going to be able to implement them. Why? Because your brain is working on willpower and willpower doesn’t last. You can’t push through over and over and over again when you’re working against the current. You’re working against your brain. Your brain is trying to protect you and you’re saying, “No, I don’t want this protection,” but then your brain [says], “Okay, well what else am I going to do? I have to protect you.” So it’s constantly working against you. Stop working against yourself and give up that willpower and just go straight to the core deal with it and then all the other stuff comes out. So, naturally that’s one of the things. Like you’re saying, joining a program like yours and mine at the same time is actually a really good idea because you end up getting that balance of here’s what you have to do versus here’s how to actually implement it.
LILY ARONIN
It’s a beautiful integration. And one of the things that you did in your retreat that I absolutely loved was your mirror exercise. I love that because so many times, people, at least in my challenger people in my community and people who I work with one-on-one, everybody across the board has the line, especially around Shabbos, “But my kids have to have the cookies and the my husband has to have the dessert,” and all of these things. Well, none of that would be a problem if you didn’t also want to have them and if you didn’t have a problem with just having them and having a moderate amount of them that worked for your body and worked for your health—then there would be no problem, but it’s like you can talk a little bit about your mirror thing but with your marriage that we’re always looking to make everybody else and their desires the problem why we can’t be successful.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I love that you said this, I’m just going to tell you guys what the mirror thing is so you’re not in mid-air.
You walk into the house and you see the mirror, and you see that there’s a stain on your shirt so you go and you get the rag and you start wiping the mirror and it’s not working. So, you get this—the scotch and you’re scratching it. You’re bleaching it, you’re soaping, watering it—whatever. It doesn’t matter what you try, it’s not getting the stain off your shirt, and that’s because the stain is on your shirt and the second you can actually take responsibility and clean up your shirt, you will not see it in the mirror ever again, and it doesn’t matter which mirror. You won’t see it in your husband, you won’t see in your kids, you won’t see it, and the lady that just caught you in line. You won’t see anybody having that because you will no longer have to be shown that you have that stain and that’s really, really that’s one of the things that I also love the most because it forces you to take responsibility and actually look at why is this happening. Why do I see this in my husband? Why do I see this in my kids?
LILY ARONIN
Yeah, I just think that it’s such an amazing thing and I really hope that people who are on a health journey with me or are interested in being on a health journey really look at the bigger picture and that holistic element and say, “Wow. Is my biggest problem right now the food or is my biggest problem right now my marriage and the food is the way that I am numbing, distracting, coping with the stress that my broken marriage is creating ripples in my life?” and as a gift to anybody who wants to work on their health with me and also wants to do your FLY Program I’m going to give 50% off my course to anybody who signs up with you for the your FLY Program and then 50% off for my course so that while they’re succeeding in the marriage. They’re going to be able to really apply that to their food because they want to be on a food journey but they know that they’re not able to apply what I’m teaching them if they aren’t working with you and really get everything made on their marriage.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Wow, you guys. First of all, I’m shocked and I think this is amazing of Lily. I love you so much. I agree with you completely. I think that you’re so right when you can work on your marriage, which is the real root problem and then deal with the food, which is really the way that it’s showing up in the world. You’re gonna fly. You’re gonna have such a fulfilling life. I can’t imagine not succeeding that way.
LILY ARONIN
Right, because that food makes you feel so much more confident and then you feel good in your body and then when you go into this marriage class and you look at yourself in the mirror you only see the stain that you need to work on. You’re not distracted by I hate the way my jaw looks I don’t like that I can’t see this. I don’t have anything to wear. You’re just like, “Okay, all that stuff like that, that’s in process. What’s the actual thing that’s really bothering me? Oh, it’s that I really think that the house should be cleaner than it is and I am making it,” like you said, “All my husband’s fault.”
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yeah, not only that but it should be cleaner than it is. All the should—they’re really dangerous because why should they? There’s a deeper reason to why you think your house should be cleaner because someone else’s house is cleaner, because you grew up in a certain way, or because you think your husband thinks that you should have the house cleaner because he grew up in a house that was cleaner—there’s a lot of depth behind that just belief that, “Oh my house should be cleaner,” and shoulds are really not your friends.
This is just amazing. The way that I see it, creating community that actually is on that wavelength with you is so powerful. That’s why I’m making the program because people were asking me, “Let’s just do one-on-one. Let’s just do one-on-one,” but there is something so magical about being able to see, first of all, that other people are like you and you’re not the only one, which was my biggest thing when I was doing one-on-ones—is everybody thinks they’re the only one and there’s something wrong with them. Nothing’s wrong with you. You happen to just be human. G-d put you here to deal with these things. Nothing is actually wrong but you need the right guidance, you need the right assistance, you need the right accountability, you need to be in the right place with the right people. And we were just in a class before that they were saying that peer pressure is so huge and that’s why you need to put yourself in the right place. You have to be amongst people and listening to people and hearing messages that line up with what you want to do and not against what you want to do.
LILY ARONIN
Yes, that’s a hundred percent true.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Okay. Tell me a little bit about the shabbat program because I don’t even know how long it is.
LILY ARONIN
So, my shabbat ideal weight program is six weeks and it’s really powerful because you have access to all of the content forever so even though we’re together coaching together for six weeks, you clearly see how to create a healthy lifestyle that will bring you to your ideal weight sustainably, you learn how to communicate with your family for shalom bayit (peace in the home) around food and your health. You learn to entertain [HEBREW] and host people who look up to you, who really have an amazing experience when they come to your home and feel really connected. It gives you the tools to feel confident at events and kiddushes and weddings and your friend who makes those amazing chocolate chip cookies and the best challah and to still walk away from those experiences having had a good time and feeling good in your body, and just mastering those daily routines about Shabbat that actually are all week long because people are always saying Shabbat ruins their routine. It’s not true. That’s a thing we’re telling ourselves. Shabbat is a routine. Your routine is you break all your routines on Shabbat but you can have this amazing Shabbat routine that is making your week better.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I love that. I love that same thing with the marriage being the core of your life. Shabbat is the core of your week. It’s really what it’s all about. I love that
LILY ARONIN
And then you transition with your health and weight through different seasons. That’s how we end the program—is really talking about sustainability. Shabbos changes winter, summer—Shabbos changes having young children, having older children. Shabbos changes in menopause and when you’re still having babies, in nursing. I go through each of the kind of the different stages on how you can take this amazing Shabbat you created and grow with it forever.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I love it, and that’s the last part of my program too is making it stick because I don’t want you being dependent on me for anything. I want you on your own two feet. So, I love that our values match up so much. Okay, you guys. I am going to go take care of my kids because there’s a lot of noise back there. I’m so touched that you are collaborating with me in this beautiful way. Make sure that you get in touch with Lily to get your 50% off. Let’s do this thing. You deserve it.
LILY ARONIN
Go work on your marriage and let your food just be that nourishment to do the hard work on your marriage.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I love it. I love it. Thank you guys. Thank you so much, Lily. This was a pleasure.
LILY ARONIN
Thank you.
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.