Ep. 162 - How to Glow - The Origin Story
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Want to hear the origin story of How to Glow? (Of course you do.)
What is this whole concept of "glow" anyway?
Check out what one of my community members says about it and what got us here in the first place.
Resources from this week's episode:
<00:00:00> Kayla Levin: Episode 162. How to Glow
<00:00:38> Kayla Levin: Hello, my friends and all my new friends. It is so exciting to have all of you, new people on the WhatsApp broadcast and on meaningful minute app
<00:00:48> Kayla Levin: and listening to the podcast and sending me your emails. And of course, joining us inside of the, How to Glow membership. I am an introvert, but I love people a lot. so it's just been wonderful to get to know all of you and to hear from you.
<00:01:03> Kayla Levin: And just welcome. I'm so happy you're here. And all you people who've been around longer. I'm really happy you're here too.
<00:01:10> Kayla Levin: So I sent out an email last week, uh, the week before, I guess I, if, if you're not on my email list, I send out a Monday minute.
<00:01:20> Kayla Levin: Usually on Monday it's a weekly email with some kind of coaching tool. of course I include in there if there's any news or things that I'm offering but I also try to include a coaching tool
<00:01:32> Kayla Levin: that you can just take and reflect on And use. And often I ask you to email it back to me.
<00:01:38> Kayla Levin: So, first of all, if you're not on the email list yet. KaylaLevin.com super easy.
<00:01:41> Kayla Levin: Just you sign up for the free marriage workbook, which by the way is amazing. Like super awesome. I just went back through it to fix it and like I wanted to update it and make it better and I didn't change it cause I loved it so much. So go get that workbook. You could do that workbook.
<00:01:55> Kayla Levin: You could also just use that to get onto the email list. Anyway, so not this most recent one but the one before I sent One out with a question saying, what is one thing. That if you changed or improved, it would have the most impact on your marriage. This year, articulating this for yourself will make all the difference, email it back to me or write it down somewhere.
<00:02:16> Kayla Levin: XO, Kayla and I got so many answers and I read every single one responded to most of them. I, I, I tried to respond to all of them. I think I responded to all of them. And it was so amazing because really all of you that got that email. Stopped thought about it. And the truth is we so often have the answers ourselves.
<00:02:38> Kayla Levin: We don't need to go to the sheer or read the book to figure it out if we just have that space and that prompt to figure out the answers. So often it's like right there ready for us. So, first of all, if you weren't on the email list and you didn't get that email, I'd love you to just come up with something right now, before I share one of the answers. What is the one thing that if you changed or improved, it would have the most impact on your marriage this year.
<00:03:06> Kayla Levin: It's so fascinating how for some of us that might be like going to bed on time. right. You know, one answer for some of you might be like spending more time with your girlfriends. It sounds so counterintuitive, but it's so amazing. And I'll get to that in the course of today's episode, but.
<00:03:23> Kayla Levin: When you really step back and think about what's gonna have the biggest impact on my marriage, it might not even be something directly inside of my marriage. It's so cool.
A Letter From a Listener
<00:03:32> Kayla Levin: All right. So I have to read you what one of my How to Glow members sent in, because it was so amazing. And I told her that I'm gonna have to share this. So she said,
<00:03:41> Kayla Levin: Love this question. And I thought about it for a while. I found it so funny when I realized this, but I actually feel like tapping into glow state would make the biggest difference in my marriage. Yes, she's using glow as in how to glow at face value. The title, how to glow can sound like it has nothing to do with marriage.
<00:04:01> Kayla Levin: And yet thinking about it on my own, it's such an underrated yet fundamental piece in a relationship and something I really don't put enough effort into. It's so easy to stay in problem solving lane or tackle issues lane, or make big changes lane or distraction lane that I almost forget how to sit back and just glow when things are going well. Or even when they aren't, but being able to recognize the things that. make me glow. So that's my takeaway for the start of the year.
<00:04:31> Kayla Levin: I have to say, first of all, I have chills reading it over again. it's so amazing. And I was trying to decide what exactly I wanted to do with her answer because, It so perfectly describes, right?
<00:04:43> Kayla Levin: This whole, How to Glow this podcast, title, this membership program. This thing I'm out there trying to do is kind of hard to articulate. It's hard to explain to people what that energy might be because glowing doesn't mean I'm always the quote unquote perfect wife. And it doesn't mean that I'm always happy and it doesn't mean that I'm always enthusiastic, but.
<00:05:08> Kayla Levin: It does mean that I do have those moments where I just sit back and glow where I'm enjoying my life. We wanna be so proactive.
<00:05:18> Kayla Levin: We wanna be fixing all The things and we need that extra push. And sometimes the push means making changes, right? And sometimes the push is really just sitting back And being in that glow energy. If any of you listened to my interview on, Tzipora Wayne did a parenting sort of round Robin. You know, I don't know what you call these things where a bunch of different experts come on and speak. So I was speaking about shalom bayis and parenting. And one of the things that I shared there is that, one of the metaphors I use for myself is that when I'm in glow energy, I am the happy charging station. In my family.
<00:05:54> Kayla Levin: What does that mean? That means that when I'm in this place where I'm just appreciating and satisfied with my family and my life and I, my, my heads cleared up and I've worked through all those little things that I need to work through. And I'm just sitting there on the couch, doing nothing.
<00:06:09> Kayla Levin: What I notice is that my kids will pop over almost like a phone needing to be recharged, just plug in for a minute next to me. My son might not even say anything to me. He just sort of like gravitates towards me and then runs off to play. Right. And my girls will do it. They're more likely to chat with me, but, you know, it's just like there becomes a gravitational pull because people wanna be in that energy.
<00:06:34> Kayla Levin: And of course, Of course that goes for our husbands as well. So, you know, these are kind of the ways I, I guess I sort of talk around what it means to be in glow state, because I think that you know, it when you've been there, you know, it when you've seen it and when you've experienced it, but I'm, I don't have my Webster's definition quite yet. I'm still working on that.
<00:06:54> Kayla Levin: But I did think, first of all, sharing it with you to share this value, and also to put put it back on the map for some of you, right. You're listening to this podcast. I know you're a growth oriented person. I know that you're focused on relationships. Some of you are married. Some of you are not, but either way, when you're married, you want it to be the best it can be. I know that's where you are.
<00:07:16> Kayla Levin: And sometimes in the the search to be our best. We can really lose this glow energy. One of the things that I like to remind all of us is that whether you are doing coaching or reading self-help books, or even if you're in therapy, we don't do these things because there's something fundamentally wrong with you that needs to be fixed. We do this because you deserve it because it makes your life better. and that's enough full stop. that is. On its own. Doesn't have to be, cuz other people need the best of you. You know, as a mom, you don't have to fill your cup so that the kids will benefit. you, can just have it on your own.
The Origin Story of How to Glow
<00:07:58> Kayla Levin: Okay. That's a side tangent. That's it's not really though. It's really not because glowing has to do with knowing how to feed ourselves, how to fuel ourselves. And part of that is for it not always to be tied to what other people need from you. But I'm not gonna go into that right now, what I wanted to do today, which I don't think I've ever done on the podcast before is, is I've done this in other places where I've spoken, but I don't think I've ever done this here is share the origin story of the name, how to glow, right?
<00:08:30> Kayla Levin: Because originally this was called first year married, which was like, Super awesome name . And you know, other than the fact that it was harder for people to listen, who'd been married like 10, 20 years sometimes. Really was great for me to help introduce my work and myself to newlyweds, which of course is always like my absolute passion is working with people in that newly wed phase However, the podcast audience changed. And we started thinking like, okay, what's really this all about, because it's not just about your first year of marriage. Cuz why are people listening? Who've been married for 25 years. Why are people listening? Who've been married for 10 years. Why are people listening?
<00:09:06> Kayla Levin: Who aren't married yet? Good question. Right. And I went back to back, back, back, back, back. Okay. In the very beginning. How did all this start is that I was working as a life coach and my husband knew someone who needed some coaching and he felt he didn't really, you, know, he he's, he's an amazing like mentor and guide and phenomenal guy.
<00:09:33> Kayla Levin: And I keep trying to convince him to come on and coach the husbands over, over inside of How to Glow cuz he's so great with, with understanding people And how they tick. And he knows all the material. Anyway, so this person wanted some support and he felt that it wasn't appropriate, cuz this is a woman.
<00:09:48> Kayla Levin: And you know, he wanted to keep some boundaries cuz this was a a personal issue she was going through. And so he suggested she come and she coached with me instead of talking to him about it and she was all about it. And then people started coming to me for relationships. And then I started thinking, well, maybe I wanna really talk to other people whose parents were divorced and they were anxious going into marriage.
<00:10:08> Kayla Levin: And from there First Year Married was less my focus and it was more my. It was one of the tools I used. One of the tools was understanding the concept of Shana Rishona that, you know, there's this Jewish concept that you need to invest in that first year. And then I became a newlywed coach, right? Because that really sort of transformed into me, really focusing on newlyweds.
<00:10:28> Kayla Levin: And then I became a Jewish newlywed coach because that be the audience became predominantly Jewish. And then it stopped being newlywed okay. Jewish marriage coach. There we are. But way back in the very beginning, when I was designing that, that, that coaching for women whose parents were divorced, what I did is I created the first year married online course.
<00:10:52> Kayla Levin: That was the very first like product that I out there other than coaching people, one on one. And. My husband and I love brainstorming in cars. We went on a crazy long car ride. We are, you know, kids are in the back, they're busy, we're up front, I've got my notes, he's driving. And we are like, okay, we are gonna hash out this course.
<00:11:11> Kayla Levin: I knew all the tools I wanted to teach, but what we wanted to create was a process where someone would actually like every class led perfectly into the next class. And that is easier said than done. Because if what you're doing is teaching a person how their brain works. And you're sharing a lot of really important information about them and their husbands.
<00:11:30> Kayla Levin: It's not so clear what you put where, okay. So we like really had to like think very deeply and hash it out and think, God, it turned out to an amazing, amazing program. And as we're doing this and we're like going through all the concepts and bringing everything out and literally I'm telling you it was hours and hours long.
<00:11:48> Kayla Levin: At one point he stops and he is like, you know, I'm always thinking about this from the husband's perspective. And I'm really like, if I were ever to teach the husband's like, what would I say to them? And I think what I would say to them is our job is to make your wife glow. And then he, he like looks at me.
<00:12:08> Kayla Levin: He's so excited. Like I see that that is such a fulfilling mission for him. And in that moment, I felt like such a jerk. Why? Because I didn't feel that excited about making him glow. Like, let's be honest when I imagine, like I'm gonna wake up this morning and make my husband glow, that does not excite me. So I'm like, okay, what kind of terrible wife am I?
<00:12:31> Kayla Levin: What kind of marriage coach am I right? Like here he is saying he's so he's clearly so excited about this idea of figuring out how to make me glow.
<00:12:42> Kayla Levin: And I don't feel the same way. I'm not interested in doing that. I'm like not motivated. Like he is. Maybe I'm just not a very nice person. Thank God. He like stops for a minute and then he continues and he says, but I don't think that's your job. So here I'm like, oh, phew. right. Like, cuz I was about to be in a lot of trouble there at least with myself.
<00:13:03> Kayla Levin: And he says, your job is to glow. And I'm telling you in this moment is one of those like life moments where your brain kind of explodes. Because in that moment, I realized that is what's so hard. That's the challenge. We come up with all these excuses called my husband, doesn't know my love language, or we don't spend enough time together, or Niddah is really hard.
<00:13:30> Kayla Levin: Or, you know, he doesn't appreciate like all of these excuses we come up with, but that they're just excuses. The problem we have is How to Glow. The problem we have is we don't know how to do that, or we aren't willing to do it because I will tell you it is one of the most vulnerable. And intense things you can do, but when you learn how to do it, it's incredible.
The Power of Glowing
<00:13:53> Kayla Levin: And it changes everything because what it does to the dynamic is that everyone is set up for success. If you are willing and able to glow, then your husband can make you glow. That fixes almost everything. And I, I don't, I don't know if I wanna go so much into the details of why, but I'll put it just shortly to explain is that there's a difference between expressing a need and expressing a win.
<00:14:21> Kayla Levin: Okay. Expressing a need means there's something I'm not getting from this relationship. And I need it by default. If you are expressing a need someone's not getting A's right. Someone is not succeeding. You are below par and you need to come up to par. We need to fix a problem.
<00:14:43> Kayla Levin: Expressing a win to your husband means you are getting straight A's. But if you want the, A plus, plus you want the extra credit, the extra points, the bonus, I'm gonna express a win for you. One example for me was that I love it when like I love going out to eat with my husband. We were in that classic couple thing of like, where do you wanna go?
<00:15:10> Kayla Levin: I don't know where you wanna go. Where do you wanna go? The thing for me is I don't really care that much about food. And so I was having a really hard time being the one responsible cuz he cares about food more than I do. Like he's gonna enjoy himself or not enjoy himself much more. And then in that moment I realized the only thing I really cared about was to be with him in the ambiance.
<00:15:26> Kayla Levin: So I said to him, Oh, my gosh. I just wanna place with a white tablecloth. like just gimme a nice, pretty restaurant that was expressing a win. I'm already happy because we're going out. Give me a white tablecloth bonus points. Okay. What's expressing a need, honey. We don't spend enough time together. I really feel like we're pulling apart.
<00:15:48> Kayla Levin: It's really important. Everyone says you need to go on a, on a, on a date every week. We haven't been doing it. We need to get the date on the calendar. You could try both ways, but which one is gonna make the person excited and motivated to try it's when you're already succeeding and we can succeed even more.
<00:16:10> Kayla Levin: Right. And when we are in glow mode and not even when we're in that mode, but when we're willing to be made to glow, bring me to this place. I will just glow the whole meal. I'm just gonna love it and enjoy it and bask in it. There's so much more motivation to provide that for you to offer that to you, to, to do what it takes to get you that thing.
<00:16:30> Kayla Levin: And Ugh, it all just goes back into other things because we don't need him to do that in the first place. And that is the work that we are doing here in this podcast. That is the work that we do inside of the membership. That is the work that we're doing, in coaching. To be in that place to be able to experience and to share and to understand what gets us to glow, how we can glow and just really enjoying the incredible impact that that has on every single area of our lives.
<00:17:06> Kayla Levin: How. Us being in that phase affects the dynamic of our relationships, how it has us show up differently in our work, in our health, in everything. I think it's some pretty amazing work. So what I wanna offer all of you this week is to just start to play. If this is a new concept for you, just to start to play with this glow energy, give yourself three minutes where you are just going to.
<00:17:37> Kayla Levin: Be in a state that is whatever this got to you too. In the course of this episode where you are in appreciation in enjoyment, where you are all being willing to be made happy. And let me know how it goes. I love love hearing from you so you can email me, Kayla@kaylalevin.com. You can comment on Instagram, if you wanna comment on one of those posts or send me a message, I would love to hear from you wishing you all a very, very glowy week, see ya next week. Bye-bye.