Episode 204 - Three Ways to Maximize Shana Rishona Part 1: Get A Life

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We just opened doors for ⁠the First Year Married course⁠ and to celebrate I'm giving you a 3 part series on how to get the most out of shana rishona.

This episode is mainly for my newlyweds out there, but these tools are relevant no matter how long you've been married.

In today's episode, find out how getting a life is CRITICAL for a happy marriage--and how to make it happen.

WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER IN THIS EPISODE:

1. Getting a life

2. Make sure that your life feeds you

3. When you were at your best

4. Problems and solutions

   
   

FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE:

1. Want to share your coaching wins? Have a question? Thinking about joining the course and want to talk it out? I'd love to hear from you!

2. Newlywed Course starting Dec 2 (includes Time Management course until Nov 15) ⁠kaylalevin.com/newlywed⁠

   WhatsApp: ⁠https://wa.me/19739307981⁠

   Email: kaylalevin@kaylalevin.com

0:42

Hello my friends, it has been a very long time and I want to send a huge thank you to the person who just sent me an e-mail and gave me the final kick to just get back in here.

I've missed you, I've missed podcasting a lot, I've missed hearing from you and talking to you, and I'm so grateful that our very very crazy year seems to be coming to a bit of a close able to get back into it.

1:08

So I am about to relaunch my next round of the first year married course.

We're starting on December 2nd.

So I thought, why not do a little mini series on Shana Rishona.

And honestly, even if you've been married longer, if you don't have to work on these things to some degree, I'm a little shocked.

1:30

So good for you if you don't need to.

These are things that are so, so hypercritical in Shana Rishona, but they are relevant to us throughout the lifespan of our marriage.

And I'd love for this to be a little place this podcast to be a place for you to check back in.

1:45

As I always say, marriage is one of the first things to go to the back burner.

And one of the ways for us to stay engaged in being intentional and positive and investing in our marriages is to find how it's fun is to find how it's so you to be doing this kind of thing.

2:02

And for me, coaching is for sure the way. OK, So what are we doing today? Today I want to be talking about getting a life.

Now let's just paint the picture of what I see so frequently in Shana Rishona couples.

2:18

And I'll say honestly, I see this much more with couples who, you know, since I work, we work with the women.

So they're not living near where she grew up. And and all the more so for couples that come to Israel. Some of you do come to Israel and you've got kind of a built in network.

2:35

Maybe a bunch of your best friends already got married and they've been kind of waiting for you and you feel like you're joining the crowd.

But for so many women that I speak to, there is a big jarring difference between life before Shana Roshona and life in Shana Roshona.

2:50

And it's not just the guy that's in your house all the time or not very often, right?

It's it's your whole life.

And if you think about the way that your life is was naturally, you probably were working, maybe you were in school. A lot of things were built in.

3:06

So, for instance, let's say you're a person who needs a certain amount of social time, which is most humans, You probably didn't have to really seek it out.

The social time you got after school was bonus, but you were spending all day long with people.

Now, how many women do we have who are working at home on their computers by themselves, not socializing, not seeing people except, you know, maybe if they really go out of their way and they're they push themselves.

3:31

How does this actually play out?

What what I tend to see, what I think is like kind of a pattern that that that could happen is you get to Israel in the beginning, there's like the flurry, there's the seeing people, there's the setting up the apartment, there's the discovering your new place.

3:48

It's so exciting, maybe a little scary, maybe a little anxiety ridden, but exciting.

And there's just so much to fill you with, like discovering, you know, your life here and figuring out your routine.

And then you get into the routine and you start to feel like he's gone all the time.

4:07

Maybe you even start to resent if he's sitting and learning or wherever he is, if he's in grad school, if he's at work, like start to resent that.

Even if you're busy yourself, even if you're doing your own thing, unless you're doing something that's meeting a lot of those needs, which is amazing if you happen to fall into it is even more amazing if you were self aware enough to know and design your life ahead of time.

4:28

But for so many women, that's just not possible.

You, you can't figure all this stuff out from overseas or from wherever you were.

You have to kind of get there and then and then, you know, build the airplane as you, as you launch, as you fly it, right? So, so it's, it's not your fault if this isn't how it got set up.

4:45

But it just sort of starts.

What it ends up doing is putting this tremendous burden on your husband.

And whether he knows about it or not in your head, it starts to be like he's always gone.

He is not spending enough time with me. He is not listening to me.

And what I want you to know is what would really be happening.

5:02

It's possible.

Those are things that need to be worked on, but before we touch any of it, we have to make sure that your life feeds you.

If it doesn't feed you and you don't know how to make it feed you, first of all, you're already in a better place just by knowing that's what's actually happening.

5:19

Oh, I'm not feeling depleted because I married the wrong guy.

I'm not feeling depleted because I hate Israel or liquid or wherever I'm living.

I'm not feeling depleted because there's something tremendously wrong with our communication.

I'm feeling depleted because my life is not filling me up.

So I want you to think back over a time in your life when you were just like, at your best, OK?

5:42

I don't care how far back you have to go.

You want to go to 2nd grade, Be my guest.

OK, Go back to wherever.

Maybe it's somewhere in high school.

Maybe it was middle school.

Maybe it was after high school and you or you were in college or you were working and there was just this feeling of you're on the top of your game.

6:00

You're enjoying your life, you're looking forward to your days, and I want you to get really scientific and think about what was happening.

For instance, was there a lot of external structure so you didn't have to figure out what you were doing and rely on yourself to stick to your schedule?

6:18

The schedule happened for you.

You had to be at work at a certain time or you had to be at class at a certain time.

Was exercise built in?

Were you, you know, on some kind of team or in a class at your school?

And so you were working out on a weekly basis or maybe even more and now haven't really found a gym, haven't figured out you love to swim, you don't know where the pool is.

6:40

Like you, you, you might have dropped that what was going on for you socially, even though during class you were, you know, maybe minimally socializing.

You had lunch, you had break recesses between class, you had time, maybe you had an obstacle job or something like that.

6:57

Don't think about social life only in terms of your peers, just socializing with, you know, all the people, your neighborhood, your, you know, aunts and uncles, whoever it is that you were seeing in the course of your day.

Maybe you came from a big, big house with a big family and a lot of siblings.

And now it's just the two of you in this very quiet apartment.

6:57

Don't think about social life only in terms of your peers, just socializing with, you know, all the people, your neighborhood, your, you know, aunts and uncles, whoever it is that you were seeing in the course of your day.

Maybe you came from a big, big house with a big family and a lot of siblings.

And now it's just the two of you in this very quiet apartment.

7:15

OK, you want to factor all these things in, not to make a list of, Oh my gosh, here's all the big problems.

It's the difference between these are problems that are just like, not solvable.

And Oh my gosh, my life is so terrible.

And these are problems that have solutions, but we can't solve a problem if we don't know what the problem is.

7:34

OK. So I'm just using problems in a specific way, meaning problems that are solvable.

So you want to identify what that is, what's different about that time in my life when I felt really good, felt on top of everything.

And now, now I'm going to speak for a minute to those of you who are not in Shana Regona, still relevant.

7:53

You might pull a time in your married life and you might pull a time not from your married life.

So something where this could be really relevant.

Like let's say, did you have a lot more time for intellectual stimulation than you have right now?

That's a problem. There might be a solution.

8:10

The solution might not be that you go back to a full time school, you know, you go get your PhD, but you might be able to find something that's somewhere in the middle.

OK, so you can also be doing this exercise.

You just have a longer time span to pull from, right over the course of your life.

8:26

What I think is really important here is to remember to take responsibility for this piece.

It's wonderful when someone swoops in and it's like, I see you're not at your best.

I feel like you could use some time with friends.

Go get coffee. It's really great.

If it's your husband, it's so cute when they do that.

8:43

Maybe your husband does that, maybe he doesn't.

Either way, even if he's the one that does, it's your job.

This is something I speak about a lot in one of my classes inside of first year married.

We talk about self-care.

I break it into three separate levels and it's so important to know what are the things that are my responsibility as a person who has a psyche, who has a body, who has a neshama, What is needed by those parts of me for me to be at my best?

9:08

And I want to get to a place of ownership of that.

So yes, I want to feel like he's taking care of me.

That's coming from a very real place.

I call this the mysterious Hupa effects that under the Hupa, it's like we, we lose our our self-care ability.

And all of a sudden it's like, how come he didn't tell me to go to bed?

9:24

As if I don't know that I should go to bed when I'm tired, but I don't.

And why?

It's the mechanics of Shana Rishono really, which is that we're needing to feel that sense of he's bought in.

He's really here for me. He's really supporting me.

But I want you to know that when you get to that place of mastering your own self-care and specific type of self-care, being the just sort of holding yourself at that being, you know, getting that social time, getting that intellectual stimulation, getting that physical needs met, all of those things, then he can take care of you above and beyond.

9:57

It doesn't mean that there's nowhere left for him, right?

He can send you for iced coffee even if you don't need it.

You don't have to need the things, right?

So it can be this extra gift that's really again, above and beyond.

So what I want to leave you with this week is this challenge, this thought.

10:15

I want you to be chewing on this, noticing this analyzing, you know, just sort of like you don't have to have pen and paper, but if you're the type, go for it.

I love sometimes you guys like what's at me or notes and I just love it.

I love seeing the work you're doing, what's different, What are my challenges and what are some possible solutions.

10:34

I'm going to give you one more thing.

So often we hear women saying like, Oh my gosh, I want to just, I would just want my husband to just listen to me and he's just offering solutions and we're missing the boat a little bit because he's amazing at offering solutions.

10:50

So this is a great opportunity for you to take advantage of that.

You don't have to go with his solutions, but if you've identified some clear problems, hey, I think I need some more social time.

Offering that to your husband is like, do you have any ideas for me? What do you think?

You might find some amazing out-of-the-box ideas.

11:09

If you already have your solution in mind, don't ask, just let him know.

Here's what I want to do.

Do you need any help?

Let him know what help you might need.

Otherwise, leave it, take care of it.

You don't need to do this if you already like he.

There's only one right answer he could possibly say, but if you're stuck on something, this is when you turn to your husband.

11:26

This is when you ask him for ideas because he will give you some amazing, amazing solutions and you'll be able to benefit from that brain of his. OK, that is your work for this week. I'd love to hear from you. I'm going to include the show notes, how to send me a WhatsApp message if that's how you want to communicate.

11:41

Also my e-mail if that's how you want to communicate. Also just show up next week if that's all you want to do. Those of you who are in Shawna Rishona or want to redo your Shawna Rishona, this is the time to get into the course. OK, it's going to be starting December 2nd, but right now until November 15th, I'm including my mini course Time Management for Jewish Women for anyone who signs up and you can get all the details, the breakdown, what are we doing, everything.

12:09

How does it run on my website? Go to kaylalevin.com/newlywed and you will see everything there. I would love to have you in there. I would love to coach you. I would love to share all of this information with you and set you up for an amazing, meaningful and productive Shana rishona.

12:26

Have an amazing week. Next week I will be back to talk about how your husband is not a puppy. See you there.