Ep. 157 - Staying in Your Lane - Summer Series Replay
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It's crazy what a 180 we need to go through to go from dating to marriage.
Dating: "Can this guy make me happy?"
Marriage: "It's not his job to make me happy... I make MYSELF happy!"
Is this a cop-out?
Is this even possible?
And what's the point of getting married if he's not going to make me happy?
Check out this week's replay for my two episodes all about the tool of Staying In Your Lane. It's one of the best things you can do for your marriage and your own happiness.
Resources from this week's episode:
Jewish Money Matters podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
Transcript:
<00:00:00> Kayla Levin: Episode 157, staying in your lane summer series replay.
<00:00:37> Kayla Levin: All right, ladies, this is the pen ultimate, which I'm pretty sure means. Second to last . If I remember correctly of our summer series, best of replays staying in your lane is one again, this one I, and I shouldn't be surprised that this is one of the ones that my ladies recommended.
<00:00:52> Kayla Levin: That we reshare because it's a tool that we use a lot and really the truth is it's not one that I often remind my clients to use. It's one that they tell me that they've been using, that they, you know, will be describing something. And then they'll just it's that, that quick re shift. So I hope you enjoy.
<00:01:10> Kayla Levin: Let me hear how this goes for you. If you get a chance to use this tool, I would love to hear from you. You can always email me, Kayla, Kayla eleven.com. Or if you're on the socials, you can get me there. Have an amazing week weekend MI see you back here next week,
<00:01:24> Kayla Levin: I actually have two episodes for you on this skill. So I'm including them both right here.
Part 1 ---
<00:01:29> Kayla Levin: Hey ladies. And welcome back. It's been an awesome January. I'm recording this February 2nd, probably the day that it's gonna go out. We've had a really busy month adjusting to this new group coaching program, and I've gotta say it is beyond what I had hoped.
<00:01:44> Kayla Levin: And it's so exciting to get to get on the screen and really be working with you and interacting with you. I mean, I'm doing it all the time in my one-on-one coaching, but there's something so special about a group of women seeing each other and seeing. We're all kind of dealing with very similar things when we're newlyweds.
<00:02:02> Kayla Levin: So it's just been an amazing month. You'll hear my voice is a little bit raspy, but I'm so happy to be here. Recording this episode with you. I'm gonna be giving you a little bit of a sneak peek into what we're doing in February in the group coaching program. This is sort of the focus. So let me start here.
<00:02:18> Kayla Levin: I get asked a lot. Do I teach the. Right. So like, I run this online course, all this material you need to know, and you're getting married and really common stumbling blocks and where people are getting really tripped up and where the fighting is coming from. So why don't the guys need to hear it right?
<00:02:35> Kayla Levin: Or they'll say like, does your husband teach men or do you work with somebody else who teaches the men? Why not? Right. Cause I don't and for sure there is a need for. We know that everybody, everybody, male or female needs a teacher or a mentor or something to help them to grow. But here's the thing that I see working specifically with newlyweds that 90% of the time, the struggles that we're dealing with, and I could say 90% of the people, but I'm really meaning 90% for each individual.
<00:03:11> Kayla Levin: 90% of the time, the struggles that we're dealing with are really happening in our own heads. Honestly, the husband is kind of irrelevant. some of the time, sorry, husbands, if you're listening, you know, we can have drama about you regardless of what you're doing. So I wanna invite you whether you're in the group coaching program or not to join us for our monthly focus for February, which is being the wife.
<00:03:36> Kayla Levin: You wanna be. If you're listening to this podcast on time, you've got a whole month to be focusing on this, to be thinking about this material, journaling about it. And those of you, of course, in the program, we've got a lot more going. I'm gonna be talking this week about the three main parts as I see it, of staying in our lane emotionally, physically, and showing up.
<00:03:57> Kayla Levin: So let's start with emotionally instead of feeling good because of what he's been doing or not doing. And of course what you made that all mean let's feel good because you're taking care of your own emotional wellbeing. And for some of you, especially if you're new here and by the way, there are so many new people and welcome.
<00:04:16> Kayla Levin: I'm so happy you're here. I know that, you know, whether you're new or not, for some of you, that's gonna sound like such a cop out, right? Like why Kayla are you letting him off the hook? But here's the crazy truth. He doesn't have the ability to make you happy. Only you can do that. And in the beginning of our marriage, we have to spend a lot of effort and time wrapping our head around that.
<00:04:44> Kayla Levin: So I'm gonna say it again. He doesn't have the ability to make you happy anyway, only you can do that. That is not what you've been fed. right now. You're married. You're gonna be so happy cuz he is your perfect person. So if I'm not happy, but I'm married, maybe he's not my perfect person. Maybe something's horribly wrong.
<00:05:05> Kayla Levin: Maybe I can change him into becoming my perfect person. Maybe if I just tell him about that thing that he did that I didn't like that made me feel sad. Right. That's when we get into that, like total spin. So the best place to start is that whenever we notice our mind wandering to the negative or our feelings reacting, like, and you know what I mean, when I'm talking about, you're not just having a feeling, you're having like a reaction to the way that he's acting or who he seems to be to just gently remind ourselves to get back into our own lane.
<00:05:35> Kayla Levin: So let me give you an example. Let's say he missed date night because he stayed late at work. So your automatic thought, because our brains, again, they tend to veer towards the negative. So it's likely to be something along the lines of if he really cared, he wouldn't miss date night, which then we have to continue this to really understand why we freaked out.
<00:05:54> Kayla Levin: Therefore, since he missed date night, he doesn't really care about me. Therefore, what am I gonna do? I'm married to my husband for the rest of my life. That doesn't care about me. okay. But you know what other thoughts are equally true about the exact same scenario? I love being married to a man. Who's a hard worker, or I don't really get so hung up on things like that.
<00:06:17> Kayla Levin: Or I'm a pretty flexible laid back person. Or I love having a relationship where we can change plans at the last minute. And we're both totally fine. Guess how many women out there would be thrilled for their husbands to wanna work that hard? Because I know for my clients, I've got one group telling me that there's no way they could possibly be happy cuz their husband doesn't work hard and I've got the other half telling me they can't possibly be happy cuz their husband works too hard.
<00:06:45> Kayla Levin: right. This is why we have group coaching you need to hear each other. Like I said, he can't make you happy. There isn't a happy medium, right? There's only what you make it mean what is too much work anyway, is there like an amount of hours somewhere that we all mutually agreed upon at some point? Where did you come up with the idea of what's too much and what's not enough.
<00:07:08> Kayla Levin: That's the kind of work that we wanna be doing here. Right? Questioning your thoughts, figuring out where do these thoughts come from? Where are these thoughts leading me? Right. I don't care how true this thought is. I don't care if this thought seems to really be important if it's ending up with me, passed out on the couch, watching Netflix, because I can't function.
<00:07:24> Kayla Levin: because I'm so upset. It's not helpful. Think a different thought. You don't have to think a thought. That's not true, but there's lots of true thoughts. Move on. you know what I mean? So here's some thoughts for. To be working on to be digesting, to be looking for answers for what do I wanna feel about this marriage?
<00:07:45> Kayla Levin: Am I choosing to notice the good, because you have to do it actively. Am I spending time in gratitude? Am I willing to redirect my mind when it goes on a negative unproductive bent and what feelings am I generating in this marriage? So emotionally we wanna stay in our lane. Let's move on to physically.
<00:08:13> Kayla Levin: How do I take care of me in this marriage? Because we need a whole episode on this phenomenon that I'm seeing, where you women like lose yourself. And I say, you, I did this too. We lose our self preservation gene. The minute we tie the knot, I don't know where this came from, but suddenly he's responsible for your water intake and whether or not you're overworked and if your feet hurt, right.
<00:08:35> Kayla Levin: For sure. He is even more so once you've had kids, by the way. So if you haven't had kids yet, it gets worse unless you work on it now. But is that how you would've acted if you were single? Like, I literally just had this picture of a single young adult professional woman, like waiting for some guy to like tell her to drink water.
<00:08:51> Kayla Levin: Like, no, of course not. Right. You're an intelligent human being. You don't need someone to do that. So again, physically, we wanna take responsibility for our physical wellbeing. It sounds so basic, but I'm telling you it will take care of a good chunk of the frustration or the resentment is to just remind yourself, this is not his job.
<00:09:14> Kayla Levin: It is objectively not his job to make sure that I go to bed on time or that I ate breakfast this morning or that I had the right groceries in the fridge for me to be able to eat what I need to eat. That's just not his job. Right. So we wanna get back into our lane and in an empowering way. Right. I don't, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna be playing victim here.
<00:09:33> Kayla Levin: I'm not gonna be waiting around and blaming you for everything emotionally, physically back in my lane. Okay. So what else is there? Well, we wanna feel like a good wife, right? But we have to dig a little bit deeper to know what that means. When and what did you decide about what is a good wife? What things are just sticking with you?
<00:09:58> Kayla Levin: Right? Whether they're for cultural reasons or whatever. I don't really care where they came from to be perfectly honest. And they're sticking with you and they're giving you guilt or shame or insecurity, but you don't even really believe them intellectual. What are those things and who are you measuring yourself against?
<00:10:16> Kayla Levin: Like, get really clear on that the next time that you start to feel insecure or like, you're not doing a good enough job. I want you to ask yourself like, who is doing this right. And what you're gonna find is that it's probably only this one aspect of that person that you measure yourself against and in another area where maybe, you know that they're a little bit weaker.
<00:10:36> Kayla Levin: You don't measure yourself against them there too. You measure yourself against someone that's strong in that area, too. Right? So we wanna get crystal clear on all those things. We wanna get crystal clear on what ideas are rattling around in our heads specifically here this month, about what makes a great wife and then.
<00:10:53> Kayla Levin: You can do that work of clarifying which values you truly believe, right? Once you've identified kind of, what's like sticking for you that you don't really want there. Then you can go back and you can be like, well, what do I really choose? I actually really like this difference between the phrase, a good wife and a great wife.
<00:11:09> Kayla Levin: I feel like a good wife helps me remember like all the sort of insecurity type things that I associate with. And a great wife is like much more empowering. That's who I wanna. So I want you to bring those values. I want you to bring that woman into the marriage. I want you to figure out who she is on your terms and just see what that creates.
<00:11:29> Kayla Levin: I just like, I'm gonna sit back here and watch and smile because. You will not believe it.
Part 2 ---
<00:11:34> Kayla Levin: Okay. So let's talk about being in your lane. I love this skill. One of the reasons I love this skill is that it's so simple and straightforward and it's one you're gonna use constantly.
<00:11:45> Kayla Levin: So it's very relevant to a lot of situations, but it doesn't require a PhD. Not, I mean, PhDs are pretty cool. You should get a PhD if you want one, but you don't need it for this. So why do we need this skill? It's really normal for your brain to start monitoring your husband, to be watching what he is doing, what he is not doing.
<00:12:08> Kayla Levin: Did he. Get to work on time today. Did he not? Did he pay the bills yet? If that's his job, right? What are his jobs? Like? We get very busy sometimes in what he's doing and how he's doing it. And all of our thoughts about that. I want you to think about one time that that's happened recently and consider how you show up when you are thinking about how he should show up.
<00:12:36> Kayla Levin: And I'll give you a little bit of a. We mirror accusations. So if I'm thinking that someone is being way too negative, guess what? I'm gonna be negative. If I think my husband's gonna be lazy, as long as I'm thinking that there's gonna be something lazy about me, whether it's lazy and just. Being a more intentional person with the way that I think, but it might be lazy in more things.
<00:13:03> Kayla Levin: I might find myself procrastinating and unmotivated, cuz I'm so busy being in his lane, thinking about what he should be doing, about how he's being lazy. You won't find a positive result for judging your husband. I dare you. Please try. Let me know. But I've been doing this for a lot of years now. I haven't seen one yet.
<00:13:24> Kayla Levin: It doesn't mean. yes. Brain I hear you saying, but I need him to do that thing. He said he would do that thing. I'm just supposed to give up on it. I'm just supposed to get over it. No, all I'm saying is when you're in his lane, you are not effective. You're not showing up how you wanna show up and you're not really able to make effective.
<00:13:46> Kayla Levin: Decisions about possibly getting the help that you need, which might mean having a conversation with him, which probably means not jumping down his throat and freaking out at him, cuz that also is not so effective right here. I'm going with this. So if you need an argument, some of you already know, I know that when I get all busy with his stuff, I just turn into a monster.
<00:14:05> Kayla Levin: I hate how I act. I get totally overwhelmed and I procrastinate and I don't do the stuff I need to be doing. And I snap at my. And I know that it's not good for me to be thinking there and being in judgment with him, but I really do want to make sure that this comes home for you, because I want you to be developing the skill of using your thinking intentionally.
<00:14:22> Kayla Levin: What is the goal of how I'm thinking? What is the effect of how I'm thinking? What happens is we get really attached to our thoughts, but he should be doing this right now. He should be at schul right now. He said, he'd be. right. He should be doing that. We wanna like atta. We wanna clinging to the thought because it feels so true to us and so important.
<00:14:43> Kayla Levin: What's so much more important than the thought. Cause I'm not saying you have to disagree with it. I'm not saying that you have to argue with it. I'm just saying you have to notice what you are creating when you clinging so hard to that thought and what you're creating. And I want you, if you, if you're not sure about this.
<00:15:02> Kayla Levin: Really work this out. How does this thought make me feel and what am I doing when I feel that way and list out every possible detail you can think of. Are you frowning more? Are you slouching more? Do you tend to eat a little bit more sugar? Are you procrastinating some of your work, right? Any of these examples that I've given you, do you go on Netflix?
<00:15:21> Kayla Levin: What is happening with you when you feel that way? You have to show your brain the result of the think. okay. Again, this is how we become strategic in how we use our brains, because we don't say, oh, I'm getting rid of it. Cuz I just don't care that he's not giving me this help, that he said, he'd give me, we say, I'm gonna redirect my brain.
<00:15:40> Kayla Levin: Cuz this isn't working. This isn't helping me. I'm still committed to having my back. I'm still committed to getting help if I need it. But I know that being all busy and how he shouldn't be doing what he's doing right now, isn't how I'm going to be effective. It's not how I'm gonna best support. Okay, so make sure you really can see, like, I always say the train you get on a train.
<00:16:03> Kayla Levin: When you're in the station, there's lots of different trains. They go on different tracks. They go to different places. You wanna be able to look at the train and know where it's gonna take you. I know that when I get into my husband's lane, it isn't a pretty neighborhood. that I end up in. It's not where I wanna be.
<00:16:22> Kayla Levin: And so when I see myself there and this again, it's a very simple exercise. It's just that awareness of like, wait a second. Am I in his lane or in my lane? Am I thinking about what he's up to? Or am I thinking about what I'm up to? What am I up to right now? What am I trying to create right now? What is my goal right now?
<00:16:43> Kayla Levin: Let me just see if I can work on. Okay. Maybe your goal is to figure out how to have that conversation with your husband about having more help. That's fine, but not coming from a place of what he's doing is wrong. And he shouldn't be doing that just like from a more empowered place. I would even say, go be in your lane for a little while before you even come back to the conversation.
<00:17:03> Kayla Levin: The other thing I wanna just drive home for you is that resisting, what he's doing is kind of like banging your head against a brick. because the reality is that's what he's doing. right. And so many women that I speak to talk about how they're just like in all this mental resistance of just like, no, not that, no, do that again.
<00:17:25> Kayla Levin: No, like, why aren't you doing this? Why isn't he doing this? We should be doing this. Like we spent all this mental energy just it's like this very tense resistance as if we think that if we resisted hard enough, it will change. I want you to know, I tried I've done the experiment. If you would like to just learn from my experience, I have resisted lots of people doing lots of different things in my life, and it was never effective.
<00:17:52> Kayla Levin: I don't happen to have some kind of mental capacity where when I mentally resist someone, their behavior changes. Now this gets confusing because sometimes we can have a conversation with someone. Sometimes we can kind of be mean to someone, give them some criticism. Sometimes we can like motivate someone with lots of positive energy and sometimes it works.
<00:18:13> Kayla Levin: And this is where I want you to get really, really careful because you're best relating to anyone in the world is gonna come first from accepting them a hundred percent. If you want an incredible relationship with your husband, do not turn to manipulative tactics like fake positivity, because you think you need something.
<00:18:38> Kayla Levin: Right. So it gets really, really murky here because we do talk about the fact that when he makes you happy, he's gonna be so much more motivated. But your work is just to let him make you happy because that's so important. Cuz if he made you happy, he gets to know that right. If we start tying it into like, so that you'll do this for me, we become very tit for tat.
<00:18:57> Kayla Levin: And I know that you all want so much more for yourselves than that. You deserve so much more in your marriages than that. Okay. So point number one, where does the train take you? Okay. When you're busy in his lane, it's not a pretty neighborhood. It's not gonna help you show up the way that you wanna be showing up and it's not gonna help you get what you need.
<00:19:14> Kayla Levin: Number two. It doesn't even work right. Resisting what he's doing, resisting the reality of the situation, any of that judging it doesn't change what's happening. And so there's a little bit of insanity there. Right? We wanna just be like, wait a second. This is what's real. This is what's true right now. Let me just be with what's true.
<00:19:33> Kayla Levin: Let me name it. My husband doesn't go to Sul in the morning anymore. He used to let's just name that not my husband should start going to sho such a tremendous difference in. The first one, you can work with the second one. There's nowhere to go, because you're just denying the reality of the situation. I need a new example.
<00:19:53> Kayla Levin: I keep using this going to show in the morning and like it's overused at this point. So, sorry. I'm gonna keep up. I'm gonna try and come up with something new for you or you can let me know next time I talk to one of you. I'll just pull your example. Okay. So that all sounded kind of negative, cuz I was trying to like really make the case for you to get out of his lane.
<00:20:08> Kayla Levin: I wanna talk about what's amazing about your lane. Okay. What's your lane, your lane. How I wanna be thinking how I wanna be feeling what I wanna be doing, what results I wanna be creating in my life. Guess what all completely in your control. It's magic over here. Your lane is so much fun. Why wouldn't you wanna be here?
<00:20:28> Kayla Levin: this is where you actually get to like, have thoughts that have an impact as opposed to have thoughts. Like there should not be world hunger and nothing happens in the world, but I say I would like to contribute to the issue of world hunger. Hey, guess what? I can do something. Okay. Your lane is a beautiful place.
<00:20:46> Kayla Levin: It's full of magic and productive energy and positivity and doing things it's amazing in your lane. It's so yummy in your lane. Come back to your lane. okay. So I want you to just hear my voice in your head. Next time you see yourself like busy in his lane with what he should be doing. Like no, come back to your lane.
<00:21:02> Kayla Levin: It's so fun over here. It's a party over here. What do you wanna be creating right now? If you're unclear, just say like, okay, right now, I'm in the after school phase of my. What do I wanna create with this three hours? Is it connection with my kids? Is it some clean laundry? Is it some mental space for myself?
<00:21:24> Kayla Levin: Is it a nap? I don't know. What do you wanna create with those three hours? Can you create it? Okay. Getting back in your lane means what am I creating? What am I producing in my life? What matters to me right now? Okay. And then you, your brain, cuz your brain's gonna work hard either. So if it's in his lane, it's working hard resisting, which does nothing.
<00:21:45> Kayla Levin: Your brain's just like hitting itself against a brick wall or you're in your lane and your brain's like, great. Let's make it happen. Here's all my ideas. How could you get a nap at three o'clock in the afternoon? Well, this one wants a play date. I don't know. Maybe you can't maybe for some of you, that's like an absolute fantasy.
<00:22:02> Kayla Levin: Keep dreaming. It's great. It'll come around one day. right. But it gives your brain something to work on. Is it possible? Maybe? What if it was possible? What if I could work this out? Maybe it's something much bigger. Maybe you want to start a new nonprofit. Maybe you want to start a becoming a speaker.
<00:22:19> Kayla Levin: Maybe you want to get a degree, put your brain to work on that. Use all of that energy and that power in service of what you're trying to create in the world. You can't be in both places at the same time. So if you're in his lane, you're not in yours, that's such a shame. Okay. So super, super simple awareness exercise this week, guys, ladies, I should.
<00:22:42> Kayla Levin: Just notice, catch yourself when you're in his lane, you might start to notice if you do this a lot and you haven't really worked on this before. You'll notice that the same couple emotions come up when you're in his lane. So you'll start to be able to say like, oh, I'm feeling judgey right now. Must be in his lane.
<00:22:56> Kayla Levin: Like you'll actually notice the emotion first before the thinking. Great. I love to have like my red flag emotions that tell me that's, you know, that my brain has wandered onto the. Train. Okay. So if you start noticing which those emotion, which emotions, those are. That's great. So step one, just start noticing when you're in his lane, step two, go back into yours.
<00:23:20> Kayla Levin: That's it it's magical. Like I said, a lot of these tools are not sophisticated. They're not complicated. You don't have to print out a PDF. You just have to do them. That's the genius. The genius is in the implementation. I know you can all do this. I would love. To help you work on getting into your own lane.
<00:23:39> Kayla Levin: If you have a specific issue, that's so sticky that you just really are not feeling like you can let go of that comes up a lot in coaching. Like I can get out of his lane in all these areas, but there's this one area that's a sore spot for me. If you're feeling stuck and you've tried this exercise, I wanna invite you to join us inside of how to glow and raise your hand and bring it on for coaching because all the other women listening are gonna benefit.
<00:24:01> Kayla Levin: And they're gonna be able to get more into their own lanes as well. So join us in our community. I would love to have you there again, make sure you're on my email list. Firstyearmarried.com/coaching. So you can get that wait list and you'll just get on my email list. You'll hear when doors are open it's at the end of the month, November 28th.
<00:24:20> Kayla Levin: Can't wait to see you inside. Have an amazing week, everyone. Okay. Bye-bye.